Moses Bertrand of Marigot.
A tourist who stabbed a taxi driver multiple times, allegedly without provocation just over a week ago, has been charged.
Jerry Christopher Marino, 26, of California, USA was charged with wounding 47-year-old Moses Bertrand on April 1, 2014 on the Millennium Highway, Castries, about 9:30 a.m.
Police said in a press release on Thursday that Marino was charged after he was “earlier released into police custody from a medical institution where he was a patient”.
St. Lucia News Online (SNO) understands that Marino was a patient at the psychiatric unit of a local medical institution.
Marino appeared before the First District Court in Castries on Thursday, April 10, 2014. The police did not provide any further details.
Bertrand recalled, during an interview with SNO, that he was the person next in line to transport the tourists – the alleged attacker and his female companion – to the airport.
Bertrand claimed he doesn’t know the reason for the attack.
“While driving from the hotel the guy started to cry, but I wasn’t hearing what the spouse was telling him. He later stopped crying … he asked me if I’m alright … I continued driving and when I was making a left on the tunnel road, the man rushed over the backseat … I noticed I’m bleeding … I [was] trying to defend myself,” he said.
Bertrand was stabbed in the mouth, shoulder and hand.
“I managed to stop on the [road]side and I [was] trying to take out my seat belt to defend myself … I didn’t see what he had … I wasn’t expecting that,” he added.
Passersby rushed to the scene and alerted the ambulance service of the incident.
“When he (tourist) was out of the bus all he was saying I’m sorry man, I’m sorry man … by that time it had lots of blood,” the taxi driver recalled.
He said he went unconscious and the next time he woke up was on a hospital bed.
“I find that very strange,” Bertrand said.
Bertrand suggested that he is traumatised, and said he will approach his job differently from now on.
“I don’t know when I will get a chance to go back to work [and] how I’d feel about it to have people on board behind me … All drivers supposed to watch their backs too,” he said.
See full interview here https://www.facebook.com/stlucianewsonline/posts/756000321106506?notif_t=notify_me
Read related story http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/breaking-news-taxi-driver-stabbed/