Grandmother crushed over stabbing death of bus conductor; one man in custody

Darius “Grabba” Williams was in the care of his grandmother Lorna Williams since he was eight months old and this makes his death even harder for the elderly woman to come to grips with.

Williams, a 24-year-old bus conductor from Glen was stabbed at the bus stop outside the Peace Memorial Hall in Richmond Hill on Monday around 5:50 p.m., allegedly by a mentally unstable person.

He was rushed to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) but succumbed to his chest wound.

“I took him from his mother since he eight months old. He not a troublesome person. You would only hear him if someone interfered with him,” the deceased man’s grandmother told SEARCHLIGHT on Tuesday afternoon while leaning on her verandah wall in Glen.

She said Darius would have turned 25 on July 16, had no children, and was awaiting the arrival of a minivan his father had purchased for him.

“I don’t really feel pleased about it. That person stole his joy. He was looking forward to his own van,” the bereaved woman said.

Reports are that Darius was mortally wounded by a mentally unstable man who was on a rampage for part of the day. An updated poster of a wanted man circulated by the police on Thursday afternoon, indicate that someone was taken into custody, apparently in connection with this death.

Lorna said that just before her grandson was killed he had helped her get her groceries from Kingstown to their home in Glen, and when she heard what happened she was dumbfounded.

She said she doesn’t know the name of the person who stabbed her grandson but from the description given, that same day, the same person struck a woman on her shoulder with a bottle and ran away and was threatening other people.

She said she was told that up to Tuesday afternoon, police still did not have the suspect in custody as he was evading capture.

“Crazy and kill people and running all over the place to hide? That ain’t no craziness.

“He was acting up and someone told his father to call the police but the father say when he call the police he does have to pay too much money.

“So they let him go like a wild beast on the street to kill people,” Lorna claimed, while noting that she has heard stories of that same person attacking his own family members.

She said the driver told her he saw the attacker and thought he was coming to catch the van to go to Glen but when he looked back, he saw Darius was wounded.

“My grandson done dead, and all I want them to do is catch him and lock him up and when he come from the mental health centre put him in jail so he can’t hurt anybody else.

“If Darius did sick and he been in hospital and I did know and I go and see him and see he ain’t look good, then I would make up my mind and say I going to lose him, but to see he just bring me from town the evening, drop me load in front the gate and gone back on the van and this mad man can run out wherever he run out from and stab him in his chest. How me go feel?

“Me can’t feel good, me can’t cope with this. I don’t know,” the distraught woman told SEARCHLIGHT.

She added that Darius’s mother wanted him in Canada with her but Darius said he was not going overseas and leave his grandmother.

“I did prefer he went away and leave me than to die,” Lorna stressed.

Darius’s death brings to the fore once again the issue of persons with mental illness on the street.