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…says wife of Ithaca man killed by son
By Farah Bates
An 18-year-old boy allegedly fed-up with his father’s rum-drinking habits slashed him to death Sunday morning at Ithaca Village, West Coast Berbice.
Dead is 41-year-old Collis Joseph. His reputed wife Toanna Wayne during an interview with Village Voice on Sunday said her husband and her son have over the years had multiple disputes with each other over the way in which Joseph treated his family. She noted that Joseph worked as a labourer at the sugar estate and would often stay away from work to imbibe at rum shops around the area. “I does cook for him to go to work and since crop start is only four days he went to work, he does take the money and drink it out and eat out all his food and don’t go to work. When he drink he does come home and pick cutlass to beat me and my children,” Wayne related.
The woman further stated that since his behaviour had gotten unbearable over the years her eldest son Rashane Wayne moved out to live with his grandfather just a street away. “He was fed-up with the rum-drinking,” she related.
It was Sunday morning that Joseph and his son had a confrontation at a shop when Collis whipped out a cutlass and chopped a few items that his son had bought for breakfast before heading to work. The man also tore his son’s money and walked out of the shop. Rashane, in an attempt to distance himself from his enraged father went home to avoid further conflict. However; Collis, hoping that his son would respond to his threat and engage in an argument, took a walk to his son’s house and continued with his violent outbursts while Rashane was locked up in the house.
The man then left and went home but shortly after returned to his son’s residence armed with a cutlass. This time Rashane was out of the house when his father made an approach to him, he then hurled the cutlass in Rashane’s direction but missed. Village Voice was told that in an attempt to defend himself from another attack by his father, Rashane then armed himself with a cutlass and threw it at his father which connected to his chest. Collis, subsequently fell to the ground and was thereafter rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
Police were up Sunday night searching for the youth who fled the scene shortly after the act. Village Voice had initially reported that neighbours said that the young man had been suspected to have become involved in substance abuse. “I talked with him once about his erratic behaviour,” a villager said “but he was very dismissive and he actually told me that he was superhuman,” the village related.
