The Tribune

By PAVEL BAILEY

Tribune Staff Reporter

pbailey@tribunemedia.net

A MOTHER’s worst fear became reality on Saturday night when her 17-year-old son was fatally stabbed outside a nightclub in Grand Bahama.

Gtero Foster was one of two men killed in separate stabbings on the island in less than 24 hours.

His mother, Latara Knowles, said she learned of the attack after her daughter called to say her son had been stabbed outside the Ibiza nightclub and lounge on Queen’s Highway and that it did not look like he would survive. By the time she reached the hospital, she was told he had died while being transported there.

She said her son was stabbed in the chest and lung.

Hours earlier, she had messaged him around 10pm to ask why he was out late. She said she threatened to come for him and warned him not to miss church because he was tired. She said his final text to her read: “I isse going church in the morning.”

Ms Knowles described her son as helpful and mannerly. A baseball player, he aspired to join Major League Baseball. He was a student at St George’s who had recently taken graduation photographs and was working to meet the requirements to graduate after transferring to the school in November.

She said that, from her understanding, her son never entered the club and was outside with friends when the assailants arrived in a car and stabbed him. She claimed four people were stabbed during the incident and believes the attackers were known to the victims.

She said her son was not a troublemaker and any issues he faced involved helping friends. She believes his friends were often targeted, though they were not the type to start trouble.

Police said during a press conference in Grand Bahama that the two other people injured in the nightclub incident had been treated and discharged. A teenage boy and an adult male are in custody in connection with that matter.

The second fatal stabbing occurred at Eight Mile Rock around 11pm on Saturday. Police said a 38-year-old man, identified by The Tribune as Okino Kareem Burrows, was fatally stabbed by a 46-year-old man in Hepburn Town during a physical altercation. The suspect later turned himself in at the Eight Mile Rock Police Station.

Last year, Mr Burrows told The Tribune he lost everything when fire tore through the home where he was staying in Hepburn Town. The blaze broke out around 3am. He told The Tribune he woke to use the bathroom and discovered flames coming from an unoccupied bedroom.

Despite trying to contain it, the fire spread.

“I have nothing — no documents, no clothes. Everything burned,” Mr Burrows said at the time during a television interview on ZNS.

He believed the fire was set deliberately, saying a mattress had been ignited in one of the rooms.

“My life is ruined. I have to start all over,” he said.