IT’S a sad Christmas for two families who are mourning the loss of two young men who died after a stabbing incident at Halls Road, St Michael, on Wednesday evening.
Dead are Roderick Renaldo Jones, 22, of Kew Land, Redman Village, St Thomas, and 24-year-old Christopher Jermaine Charles of School Lane, Halls Road, St Michael.
Police public relations officer Inspector David Welch confirmed that the incident occurred sometime after 1:50 p.m. A third man was involved but his injuries were not serious.
Both men were rushed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, one by police vehicle and the other privately, but both succumbed to their injuries during the night.
Speaking at their residence in School Lane, Charles’ family said they couldn’t believe he had lost his life in the way he did.
The former Ellerslie School student was remembered as one who was strong-headed but “loved to make a lot of sport”.
“He loved to sing, and he loved to write poems. He also loved to rap. He and the guys on the block would get together and make up songs and rap all the time,” his sister Shanika St Hilaire recalled.
His mother Angela Charles said her son loved his brand name clothes and loved to have his hair well braided.
The family agreed that although details of the incident were sketchy, it seemed to have occurred over Charles’ girlfriend, who had been living with him at the time.
“This was just a quarrel that turned out to be a bad story, and I can’t believe he lost his life so easy,” his mother said.
She said although she had not planned to celebrate Christmas, this season would be extremely sad for her family. She added that she hoped
the autopsy would be completed soon so that she could bury her son before yearend and start next year “fresh”.
In Redman Village, members of the Jones family were bitter over the incident.
Jones’ siblings made it clear they had no sympathy for the Charles family, but his mother, overcome with grief, refused to speak.
As other family members painted the house, they recalled Roderick as being the protector of the family.
They admitted that he, too, was very strong-headed.
“He wasn’t the worst and he wasn’t the best, but he was the youngest and he was the protector of this family,” one sister said.
The family said Jones left Barbados at the age of seven, returned when he was 15 and used to do landscaping work.
They noted that on Wednesday morning he left to go to work so they were shocked when they received the call that he had been involved in a dispute with another man at Halls Road.
“He was supposed to be stopping home for Christmas; he was supposed to be doing this painting for mummy, ’cause if it is one thing about him, he used to look out for this family.
And now he life gone just so over a girl,” another sister said.
