St Mary dad: ‘Neighbour boast about stabbing my son’

“My heart is bleeding now.”

Those are the words of Cedrick Gardner, the father of 15-year-old Devaro Gardner who was allegedly stabbed to death by a female neighbour on the afternoon of Thursday, May 19.

According to the grieving dad, the woman, who is believed to be 36-years-old, had called him on that fateful day.

“She say, ‘Cedrick me ago kill yuh bwoy because him bus up mi son head with a stone’,” the dad told Loop News on Saturday.

Gardner said he saw his son later after the phone call and questioned him about the allegations, but that he denied the act.

According to Gardner, he saw his neighbour later at his home, in Top Belfield, with a knife in her hand and that she was speaking in a boastful manner.

“She say she stab him. ‘Me stab him and me nuh care what happen. Me stab him down the road,’” Gardner said the woman told him.

He said he didn’t believe what she had said and remained at his house. He said he received the life-changing call about the tragedy when he left his house later.

“Me get a call from a lady that dem send him [Devaro] on a taxi to Annotto Bay [Hospital] and me must go down there,” he explained.

The unfortunate incident occurred around 4:30 pm in Bromley, according to police reports, which further suggested that the woman and Devaro got into a dispute after she approached him with the allegations that he had hit her son.

Gardner was stabbed to the right side of the chest and died in the hospital.

Gardner described his son as a “nice, humble and respectful youth”.

“Mi asking the Lord to give me the strength, because it is rough. Mi have to call upon Him more time. It’s hard, hard,” he said.

Devaro was the fourth of five children for Gardner, and the last with his wife, who had died when Devaro was two-year-old.

“I raise him and because of foolishness, mi son dead,” said Gardner.

Gardener said he and his son had only recently moved from Bromley to the neighbouring Top Belfield community.

Devaro was a student of the Jamaica Foundation for Life Long Learning in Highgate, St Mary.

The alleged attacker is in the custody of the St Mary police and is yet to be charged as investigations are still ongoing.