Last night we told you about the San Ignacio man who was chopped up on Monday evening in San Ignacio Town. 23 year old Jeston Gabb told police that while riding on Second Street - a man known to him as Windell Trapp - ran out of nowhere with a machete and began chopping him. Gabb was chopped at least 10 times to all parts of his body, including his head. Today he told 7news that he was chopped up all because of a peak cap that he had borrowed over a year ago.
Monica Bodden Reporting:
Jeston Gabb - Chopping Victim
"I had just come home from work on Monday evening at around 5:30 p.m., because I put in a half- hour or 45 minutes extra time. I had just reached home, dropped my bag, and I told my girlfriend that I am going to the shop, because I wanted to go buy a phone card. And on my way to buying the card, I reached at the shop; the shop didn't have any phone cards, so I walked toward my friend's house, and I borrowed his bicycle to go down to the shop because it's further. Meanwhile, I borrowed the bicycle, and I started going down the street, I looked to my left, and I saw about 8 boys sitting down there. Meanwhile I went to the shop, came back. I was coming back, and from when I was coming back, I noticed the entire crew of boys already broken up. Only about 3 or 4, and some other children were there. I was riding up, and as I got to the curve to go down the street to go return the bicycle - as I got to the curve, the boy started running toward me with his machete and swung at me to chop me in my face, my neck, or whatever he wanted to do. I put my hand up; that was the first block. I jumped off the bicycle, I already got chopped. I can't even swing my hand or anything to defend myself. What was running threw my mind was to see what this boy's intention was. I felt that he came to chop up me with his machete, or something; he came as if to kill me - to chop up me. This is how I am left. Meanwhile, he was chopping me, he was shouting that I was going to die. Meanwhile I was trying to get up to try to run away, he still picked up the machete and chased me down, and he continued to chop me."
Gabb says he was chopped at least 10 times by his attacker Windell Trapp.
Jeston Gabb
"I received 2 at the side of my head, 3 on my left hand, 3 on my right hand, in my back, my waist, my leg, everywhere. So in all, I would say about 10 - 15 chop-wounds, 10 of them serious and the rest weren't that serious."
According to Gabb, Monday evening's chopping incident is as a result of an incident which happened about a year ago that involved a simple peak cap - which Gabb had borrowed from a friend who had supposedly found the cap and didn't know it belonged to Windell Trapp.
Jeston Gabb
"Everything started because of a hat. One Friday night, 4 days after my birthday, I had just received a red and white tennis shoes for me from the States. I put on a pair of white pants and a red and white shirt. I had on a full black hat; I didn't have a red and white hat to match my clothes. So I met up with one of my friends, and I told him to switch his red and white hat with my black hat for the night. I went out that night, everything went well. A month later, I went out and I was sitting down. 3 guys approached me and started asking me about this hat. They said that they saw me with this hat, about a month ago-"
Monica Bodden
"Which you had already returned back to the guy, right?"
Jeston Gabb
"Yes, I already returned that hat about a month ago, from the same night I used it. The same young man, he didn't bring back my black hat as yet."
Monica Bodden
"But was this hat stolen?"
Jeston Gabb
"I don't know anything about that. I got information about this hat after that month when those guys approached. The information was that they lost the hat."
Monica Bodden
"And your friend found it and loaned it to you?"
Jeston Gabb "Yes."
Gabb says this isn't the first time he was attacked. In last year, the same set of men stabbed him twice on his left shoulder.
Jeston Gabb "The thing is what is really provoking me now is because, the same officer that tried to hold me down to allow those guys to kill me, he is the same officer who came to take my report on Monday evening when this happened. And now, on the news, they will say that I was riding past on bicycle, and I rode up in the yard, and I attacked that guy with a machete. I didn't even know that the guy was in Cayo. He is all the way from from a different village. I haven't seen him for about a year and a half ago. Now they are saying that it was me who rode up and started to chop the guy. If it was me who did that, the guy would be in the same situation that I'm in right now. It wouldn't have been me here, I would have been him."
Gabb was released from the KHMH today but Trapp has not been apprehended.
