There was a murder in Hattieville on Friday night as a young man was stabbed in the neck with a pair of scissors. It's a small village and such violent crimes are unusual, particularly in a case like this where they were neighbors, and they were arguing over one of the men's sister, who is the other's girlfriend. Here's more in this story.
Alfonso Noble Reporting,
At 9:30 on Friday night, 23-year-old Jerome Longsworth and 30 year old Ted Armstrong got into a fight here on Sylvestre Boulevard in Hattieville Village. The scene is directly in front of Armstrong's house, and just a hundred feet form Longsworth's house. They were neighbors and acquaintances but on this evening they were arguing because Jerome Longsworth saw Armstrong physically abusing his own sister - who was Jerome's girlfriend. According to Jerome's friend Ruben Barrow he went to try and pacify an out of control situation.
Ruben Barrow, Witness
"We walked down now and when we reached there we saw what was going and thing. So I told him to leave his mom and sister alone because they aren't doing you anything and it will just get you into trouble. He just started to swing the knife and juck after them and told them that one of them would die if they came close to him. My friend just walked inside and thing and he got a line stick and knocked him with it. He grabbed the line stick and hauled the man towards him and stabbed him in his neck."
With that injury, Jerome Longsworth ran up the street, desperate and dying. Ruben Mejia is the man he ran to save his life:
Ruben Mejia, Witness
"When I saw him I called the nurse and when I called the nurse, he came and he begged me to help him. So I decided to come towards him and I saw his position and I ran back in my for my key for my van and took off with him. At that time when I came out, he was asking me to help. He wanted me to take him to the hospital. Ruben had a rag on the spot that he got hurt and my help was to move as quick as possible with him to the nurse. I just jumped into my van and put him into my van, because he was still working, and I took off down the street in a ball of speed."
But now matter how he sped, Mejia couldn't save him, by the time he got to the village clinic, his friend and neighbor had just about expired.
Ruben Mejia,
"We took out the culprit and put him in front of the gate and he was gasping for breath because the wound in the neck was severe. By the time the nurse came out, I heard the guy giving his gasp. I saw the blood coming so rapidly. It was a condition where it was so severe that I think that if a plane was here to get him to the hospital, he would probably would have died on the way."
Friends and neighbors say that it's a death that could have been foretold. They Ted Armstrong had a reputation for being dangerous.
Ruben Mejia,
"The guy was a guy that always seemed to be harassing violence and so it wasn't a surprise that he one day did something like this. As a businessman I told him to stay away from my business. He couldn't come to buy at my place because I already knew what type of guy he was. If he did come to buy, he had to keep his distance because I grew up with them so I know the violent way he acts. He is not somebody who I trusted at anytime."
Hattieville Resident #1,
"This young man he always liked to act crazy because he called himself the murderer. He always said that he will kill somebody. But we Hattieville people, the residents of Hattieville, always took him lightly. That is what I think. He was always talking that he would kill somebody and he never did it. Well that night he proved to us that what he said was true, that he would kill somebody and he did it."
But whether crazy or playing crazy, thi9s friend says he was in his right mind when he did it
Ruben Barrow,
"He was in his right mind because as finished doing it, he ran into the neighbor's house. If he was a crazy man, he wouldn't have run. He would have stayed right there and try to kill somebody else. We want don't him to go to any crazy house, we want him to spend his time just like everybody else at jail. We don't want him to go to any crazy house because he isn't crazy. The crazy man who stabbed the two girls is in jail so we want him to go to jail too because he killed my friend for nothing."
Ted Armstrong has been charged for murder.
