He stabbed his wife and the mother of his children to death in front of their 11 year old son, on Christmas Day in an argument over a ham and today Cecil Wilbert Gabourel pleaded guilty to the crime. This morning, in what was supposed to be his murder trial, Gabourel, represented by Simeon Sampson decided not to waste the court’s time and pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter in the killing of his wife.
The DPP’s office accepted the guilty plea this afternoon. Justice Adolph Lucas reserved sentencing for Monday, January 26. The crown witness in the case would have been the couple’s 11-year-old son, now 13, who was on the verandah when he saw his father stab his mother. In his statement to police in 2006, the child told police that at about 6:00 p.m., on Christmas Day, he was at home with his mother, father and two brothers. The minor said his mother was dressed up that day as she was going out, and as his mother was serving their food in the kitchen, his father came to the door.
The child said that his father seemed like he had been drinking as he smelled of rum, then he went to the kitchen where his mother was and he heard when his mother told his father not to eat the ham, but to eat the chicken. That’s when she went into the hall and got a broom and began to hit his father with it as he had cut the ham and ate it even though she told him not too, said the 11-year-old. His mother then went outside into the yard and went to the alley mouth to speak with a taxi-man and that’s when he saw his father take a kitchen knife and run outside and accused her of having an affair with the taximan.
Shortly after, he saw his father stab his mother to her collar bone area. Later that day, Gabourel turned himself into police and told them that he had stabbed her.
