Liberia: Man, 35, Hacks Girlfriend for Ending Relationship

A "jealous” boyfriend has injured his estranged girlfriend who is now fighting for her after she refused to accept his plea for them to settle their differences and rekindle the relationship.

The 35-year-old man, identified as Charles Jerbo, hacked his estranged girlfriend known as Louise with a cutlass multiple times — resulting in multiple wounds with the victim now fighting for survival as her condition has been described by doctors at the John F. Kennedy Hospital as ‘critical’.

Jerbo’s action, which also affected his sister-in-law Oretha Reeves, an eight-months-pregnant woman, came after his girlfriend decided to quit their relationship on grounds that he was arrogant, jealous, controlling, and rude.  His gruesome retaliation was carried out in the late-night hours of April 22.

Earlier on the day he committed the gruesome acts — the chopping of his girlfriend and her eight-months-pregnant sister — he had gone to the house to beg her to reconsider the decision of quitting the relationship, but his plea was vehemently turned down.

But after the rejection, Jerbo left his estranged girlfriend’s home and returned the same night with a “cutlass and gas” to carry out his act as planned. 

He then entered the room of Louise and began chopping her. And after his sister-in-law Oretha, 41, ran into Louise’s room screaming for help, he turned his attention to her and became violent, chopping her with the cutlass in his hand.

“We received a call from one of the community dwellers that there was a domestic violence case that was going on in the Wilson Corner Community, VOA road,” disclosed Tarnue Kerkula, the Commander of Zone Six Police Station in Brewerville City, outside Monrovia.  “Jerbo went to his girlfriend’s place trying to reconcile their relationship but she refused on grounds that the man was a violent person and never wanted anything to do with him or the relationship.”

“So he left and returned the same night with a cutlass and gas. He entered the lady’s house in the presence of the children and he started to butcher his estranged girlfriend in the room. While she was yelling, her bigger sister, Oretha, went to rescue her but Jerbo chopped her head, thigh, and other parts of her body,” Commander Kerkula noted. 

But after committing the act, Jerbo, according to the police, set ablaze the house while the two women were lying in cold blood and tried to escape the crime scene.

Unfortunately, it was too late as his estranged girlfriend’s neighbors and other community residents were already on the scene, trying to rescue the two victims.  And after finding it difficult to escape, he made his way into the ceiling of the building and threatened to kill anyone who attempted to arrest him. His threats fell on deaf ears as residents became angry and rushed in the house not just to rescue Louise and her sister but to apply mob justice.

 “When Jerbo chopped his girlfriend, he felt that she was dead and he put the house on fire and the woman sustained burns also.  However, we managed to quench the fire and rescued the women,” Kerkula noted. “Before that, Jerbo had climbed into the ceiling with the cutlass when the house was surrounded with neighbors and community dwellers. We tried to control the crowd when Jerbo was attempting to escape the house but it became difficult.”

And while the police were escaping with Jerbo, the crowd became disgruntled and started throwing stones at the police in a bid to avenge their neighbors’ pains. Eventually, Louise and her sister’s rescuers got the revenge they desired as the stones and other deadly weapons thrown at Jerbo, hit him hard, leading to his death in the early morning hours of April 23 at the John F. Kennedy Medical Hospital in Sinkor. However, his victims are in critical condition.

“Though several rounds of smoke gas were released to disperse the crowd, they still managed to throw objects at him. They became violent and stones us along with the suspect. Jerbo sustained wounds in his legs and got hit on the head. But we were able to rescue him. We managed to open the corridor and we put him in the police vehicle that came and took him to John F. Kennedy hospital for treatment,” Commander Kerkula noted.

“But he could not make it. At the hospital, doctors confirmed that he died of severe bleeding sustained from stones and other deadly weapons that were thrown at him. The two women are undergoing treatment but they are under a very, very critical condition presently,” he added.

Jerbo’s action comes a few weeks after a  24-year-old lady was murdered by her boyfriend in Nimba County. The victim, Grace Menlor was in a relationship with Preston Dolo, a commercial motorcyclist who lives in Ganta but after a few years of living together, she moved out of their home last year as a result of “some misunderstandings”, friends say. 

Grace’s murder, which shocked the commercial city of Ganta, Nimba County, was carried out by Dolo, the  28-year-old commercial motorcyclist, before turning on himself.  The incident happened in the early hours of Monday, April 11, in Gleeyelu Community, where Grace moved after she left Preston.

Grace’s lifeless body was found lying in the pool of blood with wounds in the right corner of her chest and the lower part of her left breast, while the perpetrator was also lying in a pool of blood and a deep cut on the lower part of his belly, with his intestines floating out, but he was still breathing. She was killed in her bedroom, a day after she had gone out to spend a night at a friend's place,  according to an eyewitness who seems to know a lot about the deceased.

According to an eyewitness, since December 2021, the late Grace had been living in the Gleeyelu Community up to the time of her demise, having left her boyfriend in Boe Community where they once lived together.

Meanwhile, Jerbo’s girlfriend's biological daughter, Louise Joe, says she moderately witnessed the heartless incident that led to the hospitalization of her mother and aunt.

The little girl narrated that before the incident occurred, her mom, aunt, and grandmother were together watching a movie, and the former left — an opportunity which Jerbo used to enter the house and carry out his crimes. Little Louise Joe then claimed that he started swearing that if he does not kill me along with my mother and aunty, then he was not born of a woman.

“So, Charles — my stepfather entered the house when my aunty and mom had gone to sleep. My grandma was outside. When he entered, I saw a cutlass in his hand and I wanted to run. But he said if I run, he will kill me,”  Little Louise explained. 

“When my mother woke up, he started chopping her with the cutlass. I took my little sister and tied her mouth. He started looking for us in the house after he hurt my mother and aunty. I got in the water barrel,” Little Louise noted. “He hit it with the cutlass. So I jumped outside and went under the bed. But still he came for me and started swinging the cutlass under the bed multiple times with the intent of hurting me but, as God could have it, it did not work.”

“The people came and started to burst the door but he was still chopping my mother and aunty. When the people opened the door for us, he ran to the ceiling,” she said.

“When my mother cooks in the house, he always complains that his food is small and our food is plentiful. In most cases, he locks the door and beats us and sometimes picks up a knife and says he wants to kill us. Most of the time, he can beat my mother,” Louise Joe explained.