By SANCHESKA BROWN

Tribune Staff Reporter

sbrown@tribunemedia.net

THE family of the country’s latest murder victim is blaming a delayed response from police and clinic officials for the death of 22-year-old Jeremy Ryan Webb, also known as “King Ryan”.

Webb was stabbed to death early Sunday morning at a regatta festival in Cat Island.

Police say Jeremy got into an argument with another man around 2am that ended in him being stabbed in the abdomen.

Reports are that he was taken to the Smith’s Bay Clinic where he died of his injuries.

However, one of Jeremy’s cousins, who wished to remain anonymous, said the fight started long before the festival on Sunday. In fact, she claims Jeremy and his attacker had had an argument two nights before.

“It did not start at the regatta site, it started on the boat Thursday going to Cat Island,” she said. “The young man was walking past me and my family with his friends when the boat rocked and a drink spilled on him. He assumed it was my younger cousin, who is 14, and tried to fight him for getting his shirt wet,” she said.

“But my older cousins, including Jeremy, stopped him. The boy left and Jeremy went back on the top deck. The boy was up there and showed Jeremy a knife and they tried to stop him from coming back downstairs. He pushed Jeremy and then Jeremy punched him. The police on the boat took Jeremy into custody and held him with them until we got to Cat Island.”

The woman said once they got on the island the family assumed everything would be fine, but that was not the case.

“We stayed in the north until Saturday night when we decided to go to a dance in the south. We got there around 11pm and everything was fine until Jeremy went to the bar. When he went there, the boy was at the bar and they exchanged some words and started fighting. No one tried the stop them,” she said.

“The police came over a few minutes after and pulled Jeremy, while they were holding him, the boy pulled out a box cutter and stabbed Jeremy in the stomach, then he ran. Jeremy went outside the club but collapsed on the stairs.”

The relative said it took police almost half an hour to find a car to put Jeremy in to take him to the clinic. When he got there, she claimed the nurse would not attend to him but chose to call an air ambulance to airlift him to New Providence.

“The air ambulance took a long time to get there. Jeremy was throwing up blood and his insides were falling out but the nurse would not touch him. When the air ambulance finally got there, they said it was too small for Jeremy and took another man who was hit in the head instead. All this time Jeremy is laying on the back of a truck and at this time the sun had come up,” she said.

“We offered to charter a five-seater but the nurse said she was not going on that small plane. So we waited until another bigger air ambulance came. It came around 10am. Jeremy died 5 minutes before it got there.”

The cousin said the family believes if the police had got him to the clinic earlier and the nurse had “tended” to him, Jeremy would still be alive.

Police say they have a 21-year-old man in custody assisting them with their investigations.

A 25-year-old man of Bain’s Town, Cat Island was also injured in the argument. After being struck in his head with a bottle, he was taken to a local clinic before being airlifted to the capital where his condition is unknown.

Jeremy became the country’s 76th murder victim.

Police investigations continue.