Tonight, Police from Precinct 2 in Belize City are investigating the murder of a 15 year-old boy from East Collet Canal. And while his age indicates he was only a boy, Kevin Connor was caught up in a world of violence and retribution far beyond his years. You see, the teenager was a suspect for the recent murder of Patrick Bevans - he was interviewed by police about the killing, and he was a target in the streets. And so late last night when his body was found in an area adjoining Jane Usher Boulevard - which was Bevans's turf - it was the very tragic fulfillment of a death, which to some extent had been foretold. Today, through tears, his mother - who had already lost a son to violence told Daniel Ortiz how she tried to get her young son out of harm's way:...
Daniel Ortiz reporting
This is the vast expanse of the Port Free Zone, relatively untouched, and mostly neglected after the development prospect which failed here. It's an ideal spot for a body dump or an execution, and that's what police think happened in the case of 15 year-old Kevin Connor.
He was found last night at 10 minutes to 11 with a gunshot to left temple and 1 to the left cheek. Not much else is known at this time about his murder, other than its effect on his family who grieve the loss of this minor and his terrible end:
Sharon Connor - Mother of Deceased
"He left from here about 9am yesterday in the morning. He usually go and hang out with his friends, so it wasn't anything unusual. But when I see it was already 9pm in the night and he hasn't come home I started to worry. It was around 12pm the police came and informed me that they found him at the back on Customs with 2 gunshots to his head. My daughter and I went to the morgue and when we arrive there it was him."
It's an unbelievably tough time for Connor, but she told us that she that she expected this as some form of retaliation for Patrick Bevans' murder which happened 5 weeks ago.
Sharon Connor - Mother of Deceased
"It was not a shock because from the time they called up my son's name back there that he had killed someone, this family just target my son innocently, I knew that something like this would have happen. I was already expecting this. It is because of one mother just like me my son is at the morgue tonight because she pointed out my son as the shooter for Patrick Bevans and she knows to herself that it wasn't my son who killed that young man because my son was here sleeping. He got the news that the man got shot and he went there and got himself mixed up and got arrested and picked up, but they only had him arrested for investigation and from when they let go my son I know that they would target my son. They didn't tell him, all what they did was have my son feel like everything was so good because he know to himself that he didn't do it, so he trust to go around them. That is what hurts me because he trusted them, he calls them his friend and they still turned around and hurt my child."
Connor, who is no stranger to this overwhelming loss is still trying to put her life back together after her 18 year-old son, Christopher Jorgenson, was killed in 2 years ago, in April 2012. That's an old wound which refuses to heal, and now another fresh one, just as deep, after Connor was killed - her second son to be gunned down in similar fashion.
Sharon Connor - Mother of Deceased
"It's a pain that only mothers like me who went through it would understand. With Christopher Jorgenson I never expected that they would kill my son because they were sending threats to him, but he didn't tell me anything that they wanted to kill him. I does work out in the cayes and the Saturday I cooked home and my son and I ate together and everything and he went to drop me at the bus terminal to catch the bus to go to the boat and by the Sunday they shot my son and when I came Monday I found my son on a machine and my son passed on the Wednesday. Up to today I don't know who killed him and why they did it."
The aftermath of Jorgenson's death was that the family moved away, hoping to find peace of mind. Connor told us that she tried talking to Kevin Connor to warn him that violence from that part of the city could easily follow him. She says that he didn't heed her warnings.
Sharon Connor - Mother of Deceased
"I talk him and I moved from the area. I had my house there, it wasn't a king or queen house, but I didn't feel safe and secure because for me it's the people who see my kids grew up and the ones that wants to hurt him, so I moved away from there and I have my son know that Jane Usher is not for you again - people are there talking to you, but they don't like you, they want to hurt you. When this thing happened with this young man Patrick Bevans, I talk to son, I told him not to go around there. Those same people who you call friends son, you will talk and laugh with them and they will plan your death because they don't have any love - they don't know what love for one another is. They make other people go in there and set them up to kill one another like dog."
"So, I moved from back there and he knew, but then he trust them. I don't know what they told him. I don't know how they make him feel that they won't do him anything, but it is them that lured my son to that place and killed him because he would not go there by himself."
"How I will moved on? I want to know that myself. I only have to put my strength in God and hope and ask God to help me because I have other children. That is the only way how I can move because my son, April makes 2 years since they killed him and I still can't move on because you never move on with those things and now a second son - come on. That is hard."
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