We'll have that later on, but we begin with news of a very violent night in the city last night where three men were killed with knives. It's not gang violence, and it's not random violence: in all three cases, the crimes appear to have been personally motivated. The most prominent victim is former basketball star Frankie "Fade-away" Flowers, whose body was found with multiple stab wounds on the Marine Parade.
We'll have his story in a few, but first....we begin with the killing of 25 year old Lionel "Tuba" Gabb who was killed when an argument escalated. Today, the victim's family told us that they could not have expected a mere argument to end Gabb's life.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
At around 9:15 last night a group of young men all friends and family where under this tree having some drinks when one of them, Lionel 'Tuba' Gabb, got into an argument with a man and his common law wife who live in this apartment. Dwight Lewis was nearby, also having a drink and he saw when a verbal exchange escalated into one of the men pulling a knife.
Dwight Lewis,
"They were verbally disputing and my cousin was under the influence as well as the young man and my cousin came into the yard and the young man came down the steps and pulled my cousin and I pushed him in that direction. The young lady lives here with the young man who stabbed my cousin and the young man picked up a knife from off of the table there, walked behind his girlfriend, and stabbed my cousin two or three times right at this same spot. I clearly saw the young lady hold my family and her boyfriend came behind her and jucked (stabbed) my family two to three times. I don't know why they were arguing but I came downstairs and I told my brother I was going to the chiney. The chiney was already closed but usually we just holler and she opens. So I saw my family over here and from I came here I saw him under the influence and I saw the young man had already hauled the knife so I told my cousin to come out of the yard, come out of the yard and the man just jucked the man."
Dwight's tennis shoe today has bloodstains from his cousin as he ran onto the street seeking assistance.
Dwight Lewis,
"He came out the yard, he walked like normal, he walked like nothing happened to him and he bent down and told me to take him to the hospital because he had gotten stabbed."
A bleeding Gabb stumbled just a few paces to the intersection of Antelope Street Extension. From there he could go no more. That's when a neighbor woke up policeman George Carr. He is Gabb's uncle, and the assailant's landlord.
George Carr,
"The guy looked like he insisted to get me out here and he told it was Tubbs they had just jucked down. So I fly out of the room, flew around the curve, and I came out by the front there and I saw the same accused by the door so the same time I held him and I brought him out. When I turned my head and I looked on the street, I saw this person down on the street trying to get up but he couldn't even make it up. Then I tried to wave down a vehicle that was passing, by, he did stop and tried to put the guy inside of the vehicle and rushed him to the hospital. I continued walking around the lane. Somebody called the police, Crispin Jeffries was the first to be on the scene, the guy was handed over to him and thereafter I came back and searched for the weapon and we found the weapon about 10 inches to be exact from the house. The farthest he could have walked was right by the lane."
Now as relatives of Gabb gathered and recounted the sequence of events that led to his death they say the incident could have been avoided.
Dwight Lewis,
"I told my family, I told the next family, to get the next one out of the yard but then what I should have done was come for him myself and it wouldn't have happened that way there but maybe my family should have gone elsewhere."
And as he did go the family says that there was no real disagreement between the two men at least not a recent one.
George Carr,
"I personally wouldn't know what motivate in the first place. All I could recall is that they did have a old time beef which I thought was already finished."
But it was that old beef which may not have been completely settled and now Gabb's family is displeased with how it ended.
George Carr,
"They are not really happy with this whole situation, they wanted him dead, one for one. They wanted him dead but because I was there they didn't have the opportunity to really kill him, otherwise there would have probably had a about four or five persons up for murder, because one of the bodies would have been on this same Antelope Street and the other one would have been on Elston Kerr Street, right at the junction; two bodies."
Alfonso Noble,
You avoided it?
George Carr,
"I avoided the second murder."
Joe Usher,
"I am in shock from yesterday, I could hardly talk but all I have to say is that whoever took down my step son and whoever was responsible, they should have thanked God that I wasn't here because no way I could watch my son dead and who is responsible, it would have been out of control. I swear to Jesus Christ. She and her man would have gone with my son. She and her man, that's all I have to say but it just happened that my brother in law here stopped everything but if I was here, he couldn't stop me. He couldn't stop me but I just leave everything to the good Lord."
Left to the good Lord and the police who this afternoon formally arraigned Kermit Meighan and charged him with the crime of murder.
