38-year-old Roland Gibson was murdered on New Year's Day in New York City and interred in Belize City today. But before laying him to rest his family wanted to lay to rest the account of the story that was printed in the New York Times. That paper reported that Gibson was killed as the result of a misunderstanding over money. His older brother spoke to us off camera this afternoon saying that Roland wasn't murdered over money, instead they claimed he was allegedly killed by Marlon Soberanis, another Belizean, over a platinum chain.
Brother,
"I just want everybody out there to know how my brother really died. This guy Kevin, he used to be a friend of my brother. My brother had some stuff in the pawnshop, a chain, a platinum chain, and Kevin took one of his pawnshop ticket and went and took the chain out and started wearing the chain and sending back messages to him. My brother is not the type that is just going to sit by and just let things happen like that. So New Year's he was drinking and everything, celebrating the new year, and I guess one girl that he knew, I don't know the girl's name, came and told him that Kevin was over there at this party, at this Belizean party. So he went over there, greeted everybody, wished them happy New Year, and he saw Kevin and he went after Kevin. He asked Kevin where was the chain and when he was doing he heard a gun cock and he turned around and he got shot in his stomach. He had his gun out also and he started shooting back and this guy, Marvin, he was the one that first shot him, and he knocked Marvin, the bullet from his gun knocked Marvin off the chair that Marvin was in, into the corner. My brother went up him thinking that Marvin was dead and he turned his back towards Kevin and Marvin got up, he had a bulletproof vest on, and he got up and shot him in the neck."
Jackie,
"That was my boyfriend. I'd been with him for like five years and this is his favorite color, red. It's hard but we decided that we going to wear his color because we love red so I feel best I could do is represent what he loves. Those people in red are friends, neighbors, people who knew him really well. Its jus that he really loved red and we figured that's the best we could do for him."
Gibson had lived in the United States for 12 years. Marlon Soberanis was charged for murder and 27-year-old Kevin Parks was charged for firearm possession.
