The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

A WOMAN rushing a stabbing victim to the hospital crashed into a wall after seeing her friend take his last breath as her birthday celebration night turned to tragedy.

Toyza Stubbs, the sister of Sanchez Gittens, the country’s latest murder victim, told The Tribune that her brother did not want to go out on Saturday, but did so not to disappoint his friend, who was celebrating her birthday.

Gittens was stabbed multiple times at a bar around East Street and Soldier Road around 2am. His friend was taking him to the hospital when she lost control of the car and crashed into a wall near East Street and Sands Lane.

 Ms Stubbs said the friend lost control of the car because she watched him take his last breath.

 “The girl called me crying, telling me she was so sorry and she felt responsible, but that can’t bring my brother back,” she said.

 “It was her birthday, and he didn’t want to go, and she keep calling, and he said man, I gon’ just go and I gon’ come back, and my mummy say where you going, and he said mummy, I’m only going for two hours because I don’t want to disappoint her.”

 Ms Stubbs said her brother dreamed of playing professional basketball and planned to move to California next month to pursue his dream.

 “They took that away from him,” she said.

“His heart was basketball. That’s what he wanted to do all of his life from the age of eight. They killed my brother for no reason. They killed him four days before my birthday.”

 She recalled her last moments with her brother, when the two were in her room laughing over a joke she had made before he left the house.

 “I told him be safe and if anything happen, call me because if he’s out and a fight break out, he’ll always call and say sis come for me cuz they fighting, and I’ll always pick him up from wherever he is.”

 She said hours later, a group of girls came to her house crying, saying: “They just stab up Sanny, y’all need to go to the hospital.”

 She said a police friend told her go to the station to prevent the family from seeing the crash scene.

 Ms Stubbs said she was told her brother was leaving the bar because a group of girls with him started fighting.

 She said as he walked to his car, a man came “fooling with him because my brother sucked his teeth and say they’re girls”.

 “He ain’t getting in nobody business because he never liked confusion.

 “They said he sit in the car, and the boy just gone there to fight him and stab him up in the car.”

 The family suspects the man killed Gittens “over a girl he was only friends with”.

 Her family is shocked and heartbroken.

 “I haven’t slept for two days, and I can’t eat,” she said. “I have to stay strong for my mother and that was my baby. Everywhere I go, he go.”

 She said her brother was quiet and humble. Sometimes, she said, he would wait on the porch until she arrived home safely.

 Police said a 26-year-old man is in custody helping them with their investigation.