Family feud in Hattieville ends in murder

It has been over three weeks since anyone has been brought to the morgue due to homicide … and that’s about as close to murder free as it gets in Belize these days. The latest incident to shatter the tenuous peace occurred over the weekend in Hattieville.

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
Family and friends still cannot understand why twenty-three year old Jerome Longsworth was killed after he came to the aid of a mother and daughter. Reports are just before ten on Friday night Ted Armstrong was at the family?s residence in Hattieville Village when he started to argue with his mother and sister. According to area resident Reuben Barrow the quarrel escalated after he heard Armstrong threaten the younger woman.

Reuben Barrow, Area Resident
?We were coming from the basketball court, when we saw Ted quarrelling with his ma and his sister. So then like he tell his sister like this: unu the play with me, I will murder one of you and thing. My friend and I said better if we go holler for his brother to come deal with this, because we no want to get into family thing.?

Barrow says they were unable to locate Armstrong?s brother at his house. On the way back the young men saw their friend Longsworth walking out of his yard and the trio then made their way back onto the Sylvestre Boulevard. Barrow says as they approached the Armstrong house they noticed that the family was still arguing. Barrows says that?s when Longsworth tried to help the mother and sister by talking to Armstrong, but instead he was threatened with a scissors and then stabbed.

Reuben Barrow
?So then he gone to the boy and told him like this: boy better if you left lone your sister and ma lone and thing, because she is your mother and thing, better if you no do them nothing because God will punish you. So then like he just start to fire juk and thing, and my friend gone in the yard for a line stick and faked him. He just grabbed the line stick and juk him in the neck with the scissors.?

Barrow says after Longsworth was stabbed in the left side of his neck he ran to his friend and they both made their way across the street to this shop to get help that?s when Longsworth dropped to the ground crying out for help saying he did not want to die.

Reuben Barrow
?I holler for the shopkeeper, and the shopkeeper asked me what went on. I said the boy got stabbed and thing in his neck. So he just get his phone and called the police. No police truck was even in, so he just get his key and tell me put him in the van and let we go to the nurse. As we reached the boy dead.?

Barrows says it was difficult to watch his friend die in his arms and he wished there was something more he could have done to try and save his life.

Reuben Barrow
?It is hard. It is hard because I could not do anything for him. I tried to help him but I couldn?t help him.?

Satisha Arnold, Family Friend
?Jerome is somebody, he no get in a no problem with nobody. He no have no problem with police or nothing. He work hard and he takes care of his mother. He is the closet one to his mother right now.?

It took some time for Hattieville police to grab their suspect after they arrived on the scene. Armstrong reportedly had locked himself inside a nearby building after area residents armed themselves with sticks and whatever else they could find in an attempt to catch the accused. At the crime scene police also recovered the murder weapon. Today Armstrong was charged for the homicide.

Satisha Arnold
?Well I think the family just want justice because what happen is that Ted he just like play crazy. You know if he go in the court and play crazy then they would say he is medically unfit or something like that. We would not want that to happen because if he could play crazy and stab him then he could spend his time to.?

Jacqueline Godwin
?The family believes that what Ted did was intentional??

Satisha Arnold
?Exactly. It was intentional because I believe once you could say something and you do it, then that is intentional. I feel he meant to do it.?

Friday night’s killing was the nation’s first murder since June twenty-second.