POLICE have arrested a suspect in the January 22 murder of Shane Rowley at Sophia.
The arrest was made on Monday, February 7, along Charlotte Street, also in Georgetown and the man held is in custody assisting with the investigations.
Rowley of ‘A’ Field, Sophia, was fatally stabbed during an altercation. Previously, a mother and one of her two sons were detained in connection with the crime but they were released but a third suspect escaped shortly after the killing, which took place following years of long suspicion over theft and damage to a fence.
That led to the victim being overpowered by three persons, including a woman, all his next door neighbours, on January 22, during a quarrel surrounding two bicycle tyres Rowley had missed.
The father of five succumbed to wounds in his Lot 68 ‘A’ Field, Sophia yard.
Welton Blucher, a relative of the deceased, told the Guyana Chronicle that Rowley was quarreling with his assailants also over the fence that was often damaged to facilitate passage through his yard.
Blucher said Rowley was upset that the neighbours were stealing his property, too.
The dead man’s reputed wife, Vandetta Carter, 34, confirmed that he and the neighbours have been feuding for the past seven years and they quarreled, which is one of the reasons she moved away from his place.
The grief stricken woman said Rowley was a farmer who did masonry and carpentry. He fathered two of her children but has three others from a previous relationship.
Lamenting that Rowley was the sole breadwinner for her household, Carter pleaded for justice to be served.