Abiola Eadie, the woman shot to her face last month in McDoom, East Bank Demerara, during an argument over a cockfighting bird, succumbed on Monday and police say they are still searching for the key suspect.
Eadie, 38, died at the Georgetown Hospital, where she was in a vegetative state and hooked up to a life support machine up to the time of her demise.
She and her son, Martin Barker, 21, who was shot to his chest and a cousin, Lesha George, 33, who was grazed by a bullet on her left hand, were all injured during an argument on June 20th with a neighbour who had accused Barker of stealing his bird.
Eyewitnesses had told Stabroek News that the incident stemmed from an argument over a game bird that Martin Barker was holding as he was returning home. His neighbour, “Jesse” (only name given), they said, came out of his yard and accused the young man of stealing his bird. They said Barker, who rears birds for cockfighting matches, vehemently denied that the bird was his neighbour’s and even attempted to show him features on the bird substantiating his ownership. The man flew into a rage, dashed into his home and returned with a gun and a knife. Prompted by his wife to shoot Barker, “Jesse” opened fire, hitting the three persons.
As neighbours rushed the injured persons to the hospital, the suspect fled the area while his wife remained. Later that evening and in the presence of police, Jesse’s wife packed her belongings and also left the area.
Recounting the harrowing ordeal where he witnessed his mother shot, Barker told Stabroek News that his mother was “just trying to keep the peace” when she was shot. “She did not deserve to die like this. She was just trying to calm everything. She is not a war-ish person,” he said. “There she was, in the middle, trying to talk to Jesse, when he turn and tell me ‘When I do you what I want do you long time, nobody gon can’t do me nothing.’ And he run inside and came back with a gun and a knife waving it. He wife start coaxing he ‘shoot dem man! Don’t waste time and run yuh mouth shoot them’ and he fired,” the distraught young man recalled.
Barker said that his family now wants to see justice for the mother of two by the police finding the suspect and charging him with not only murder but for the injuries he and his cousin sustained. An autopsy will be performed on Eadie’s body today.
While Police Public Relations Officer Ivelaw Whittaker said so far efforts to arrest the suspect have been futile, the woman’s relatives believe the assailant is in Albouystown and that police are not making enough effort to locate him. They have received numerous reports that the man has moved to Albouystown and can be seen there at various times of the day walking “willy-nilly and without a care in the world,” said one family member.
