The mother of a man accused of fatally stabbing a co-worker in the kitchen of a P.F. Chang's in Peabody, Massachusetts, says her son "snapped" and had been just one week away from taking anger management classes.
On Saturday evening, 38-year-old Elivelton Dias was working in the restaurant at the Northshore Mall when he was attacked. Police say 23-year-old Jaquan Huston is responsible for the homicide and is charged with murder.
"Just like the show called 'Snapped,' my son snapped," said Shawn Maron-Huston. "That is not him. He's not a murderer."
Fighting back tears, the suspect's mother told necn her son didn't deny stabbing Dias. She knew something was wrong when he came home from work earlier than usual. She gave Jaquan money for bus fare and went to watch him leave her Salem home from her window. Instead of seeing him get on the bus, a police cruiser came to pick up her youngest child.
"When I went downstairs, I said, 'What happened, what happened? I thought you were going to Lynn?' Police said, 'Your son was involved in a stabbing,'" said Maron-Huston. "And I said, 'Really?' I said, 'What happened, Jaquan?' He said, 'He threatened me, Mom. He threatened to stab me and I did what I had to do.'"
Maron-Huston says for years, she has tried to work with her son and his anger issues. Raising four kids on her own, she worked hard to give her children the best, even encouraging her son to enroll in anger management classes.
His first one was scheduled in a week. But it didn't come in time stop Saturday's tragedy.
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"The sad thing is that the individual is gone, and I feel sad for him, I really do. If I could change anything, I would change that," said Maron-Huston.
Even knowing her son could face jail time, she wants the public to learn, from the pain this incident has caused, a lesson she says she's tried to teach her own child.
"Whatever you're going through, even if you can't come to your parents, confide in somebody," she said. "Get it out. Because when you keep it bottled in, it causes nothing but stress and for you to snap and make a decision that is going to cost you a lot of years of your life."
