Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

A lot can hap­pen in eight years.

Chil­dren grow up, com­plete their sec­ondary school ed­u­ca­tion, find a job and some may even start fam­i­lies of their own.

But none of these things came to pass for school­boys Deneil­son Smith and Mark Richards whose lives came to an abrupt, vi­o­lent end al­most a decade ago.

On the af­ter­noon of Jan­u­ary 21, 2016, Smith, 17 and Richards, 15, were pulled from the PH (pri­vate hire) taxi they were trav­el­ling in on So­gren Trace, Laven­tille, and killed by gun­men.

Both boys, stu­dents of the Suc­cess Laven­tille Sec­ondary School, were still wear­ing their school uni­forms when they were at­tacked.

Pic­tures of their bod­ies sprawled across the dusty road were cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia with­in min­utes of their mur­ders, prompt­ing an out­pour­ing of col­lec­tive sad­ness, re­vul­sion and out­rage from the pub­lic.

While Laven­tille had for years be­fore faced chal­lenges of crime, this act of vi­o­lence was an un­set­tling re­minder that not even chil­dren are spared the wrath of crim­i­nals in T&T.

Last Thurs­day, 12-year-old Ezekiel Paria was killed when he was struck by a stray bul­let on Laven­tille Road.

Paria’s mur­der prompt­ed protests in his neigh­bour­hood with res­i­dents de­mand­ing jus­tice and bet­ter pro­tec­tion for chil­dren.

Flash­back

One day af­ter the mur­ders of Smith and Richards, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, flanked by then Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter re­tired Brig Gen­er­al Ed­mund Dil­lon and then Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young, an­nounced a mas­sive an­ti-crime ex­er­cise in the Laven­tille hills, in­volv­ing a joint force of po­lice and sol­diers.

But like all show-of-force re­spons­es, the height­ened se­cu­ri­ty pres­ence even­tu­al­ly sub­sided over time and Laven­tille res­i­dents found them­selves back to square one.

For many peo­ple to­day, the mur­ders of Smith and Richards are lit­tle more than a fad­ing mem­o­ry, quick­ly re­placed by oth­er more re­cent tragedies.

But for Smith’s moth­er, In­ez Phillips, while she has healed in some ways, she feels full re­cov­ery may nev­er be pos­si­ble.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Tues­day, Phillips says the grief of her son’s mur­der, whom she still af­fec­tion­ate­ly refers to by his nick­name Den­ni, is some­thing she has come to live with.

While time has passed, Phillips still vivid­ly re­mem­bers her last in­ter­ac­tion with her son on the morn­ing he left for school.

Den­ni, an as­pir­ing crick­eter who al­so had dreams of be­com­ing a pi­lot, asked her for an ex­tra $10 to buy a roti af­ter school that day.

Af­ter hand­ing him the cash, she re­calls squeez­ing his hand for a few sec­onds longer, some­thing she re­mem­bers to this day.

“When he came out of the taxi be­fore me to go to school, he said ‘Ma you know I love you.’

“I said yes I know. I then looked at him as he walked to go to school and that was the last time I saw him alive.”

In an in­ter­view with an­oth­er news­pa­per a month af­ter her son’s fu­ner­al, Phillips said she felt lives in Laven­tille were “cheap” giv­en the preva­lence of mur­ders in the com­mu­ni­ty and the lack of out­cry they prompt­ed.

On Tues­day, she said her opin­ion has not changed, re­fer­ring to the mur­der of Paria on Laven­tille Road last Thurs­day.

“Es­pe­cial­ly the lives of young men,” she said.

“A young man could go to the most pres­ti­gious school in this coun­try and if he is from Laven­tille he will have a hard time get­ting a job. There’s on­ly one per­cep­tion peo­ple have of you as some­one from the area.”

Con­stant re­minder of tragedy

Smith’s fi­nal rest­ing place is in the ceme­tery of the Our La­dy of Laven­tille RC Church, on So­gren Trace, mere feet away from his fam­i­ly home on Mul­rain Trace, Pic­ton.

In the first few months af­ter her son’s fu­ner­al, Phillips said sim­ply find­ing the strength to walk out­side and see the ceme­tery was a chal­lenge.

“There were times I had to ask the taxi dri­ver to stop the car be­cause I had to vom­it when­ev­er I passed the grave­yard. I used to have to force my­self to go out­side.

“But know­ing the type of child I had, he wouldn’t want me to be so up­set. He didn’t like to see me cry.”

Think­ing of what her son would have want­ed for her gave her some strength to con­tin­ue liv­ing in the neigh­bour­hood.

For some time, sim­ply ven­tur­ing out­side of her home to im­me­di­ate­ly face the grave­yard weighed on Phillips’ psy­che.

Even­tu­al­ly, she was able to strug­gle through the pain of hav­ing to walk past the ceme­tery for her dai­ly com­mute, but her el­dest son, Devin, Smith’s old­er broth­er could not take it much longer.

“He moved out in May of 2016. He said to me he would nev­er come back to Laven­tille. He said even if I were sick he wouldn’t come back in.”

Phillips and her daugh­ter even­tu­al­ly moved out of Laven­tille late last year.

She said while she had func­tioned in the neigh­bour­hood for some time af­ter Smith’s mur­der, she felt the time had come for her to leave when she be­gan notic­ing changes in her be­hav­iour.

“I start­ed to get very ag­i­tat­ed and on edge. I got very cranky for the sim­plest thing and that isn’t like me. I could have moved out long be­fore but I de­cid­ed to leave when I changed jobs and can af­ford the rent.”

Laven­tille failed us

Re­fer­ring to sit­u­a­tions where there has been a sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic out­cry in the af­ter­math of po­lice-in­volved shoot­ings, Phillips lament­ed that the mur­ders of her son and his friend did not prompt a sim­i­lar re­sponse from the com­mu­ni­ty she once called home.

She said the death of her son, who lived a nor­mal, law-abid­ing life, did not at­tract the sol­i­dar­i­ty of the neigh­bour­hood and she was dis­ap­point­ed at the lack of sup­port of­fered com­pared to the vo­cal protests of res­i­dents in re­sponse to the killings of peo­ple she felt were part of a crim­i­nal lifestyle.

For Phillips, while Laven­tille will al­ways be her birth­place, her per­cep­tion of the neigh­bour­hood has changed.

“They failed Mark’s moth­er and they failed me. My old­er son and I had to move out. I was born in Laven­tille. My moth­er had me in that same house where I lived. I was born and raised there. They could say what they want. They know who did the killings,” she said.

“Laven­tille is so small, no­body is go­ing to leave where they are from, come in­to the com­mu­ni­ty and do a killing and then leave again. They know who did the killing and no­body came for­ward. When peo­ple say ‘If I talk they will come and kill me as a reprisal,’ that is non­sense.”

In the af­ter­math of the mur­ders, some res­i­dents spec­u­lat­ed that the killings were in­tend­ed to send a mes­sage to a bud­ding gang leader in So­gren Trace. How­ev­er, Phillips al­so dis­missed that claim.

“It had no gang leader. There was a young man try­ing to be a gang leader. I al­ways used to say you can’t come in­to my com­mu­ni­ty and try to be no gang leader be­cause I have chil­dren there, I have fam­i­ly there.”

Chil­dren can be vic­tims and per­pe­tra­tors

De­spite her dis­ap­point­ment at the lack of con­cern from her old com­mu­ni­ty, Phillips says she hopes chil­dren in Laven­tille are giv­en a fair chance at life.

While the neigh­bour­hood faces its fair share of prob­lems, she main­tains that her son was not an anom­aly as the ma­jor­i­ty of young peo­ple liv­ing in the em­bat­tled com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ue to show great po­ten­tial as fu­ture lead­ers.

“There are a lot of pro­fes­sion­als and lead­ers who came from Laven­tille. It’s not fair that they still get brand­ed a cer­tain way.”

A Laven­tille res­i­dent said the re­al­i­ty is that chil­dren could be­come vic­tims of oth­er chil­dren.

He said a gen­er­a­tion of young men with no guid­ance who are ea­ger to prove their met­tle to lo­cal gang lead­ers posed a threat to their peers.

“These are young guys who will do any­thing to show how will­ing they were to get in­volved in a cer­tain clique.

“Some­times they will fire a weapon and can’t even con­trol the shak­ing of the gun from the re­coil be­cause they are still so small,” he said.

Re­fer­ring to Paria’s mur­der, the res­i­dent said peo­ple tar­get­ed by killers are not nec­es­sar­i­ly in­volved in crime them­selves and could be any­one.

For many of Smith’s neigh­bours and friends in Laven­tille, it is hard to be­lieve that eight years have passed al­ready, but those who were clos­est to him feel the dif­fer­ence the years have made.

Phillips re­mains in con­tact with the moth­er of Mark Richards and in­vites her to a memo­r­i­al ser­vice and meal each year on the an­niver­sary of their sons’ mur­der.

Deneil­son would have been 25 years old on Oc­to­ber 15.

Phillips of­ten thinks about the kind of man he would have grown to be­come and re­mem­bers her fi­nal mo­ments with him.

Deneil­son, as a mid­dle child, of­ten promised to take care of her when he be­came a com­mer­cial pi­lot as a way of show­ing his grat­i­tude to her for her years of sac­ri­fice.

“He al­ways used to say, ‘Ma I will take care of you. Don’t wor­ry about any­thing. I will al­ways be here to take care of you.”

He nev­er got the chance to make good on that promise, but for Phillips, the road to heal­ing con­tin­ues.

For now, she hopes young peo­ple in her old neigh­bour­hood are giv­en the chance to grow up and find a bet­ter life.

It is a chance her son and his friend will nev­er have.

Cops: Case still open but no charges yet

The un­will­ing­ness of res­i­dents to come for­ward and as­sist po­lice or even ac­knowl­edge that they might know who the killers are has brought the in­ves­ti­ga­tions to a stand­still, po­lice said.

As of Wednes­day af­ter­noon, no charges have been laid against any­one for the mur­ders.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said two sus­pects were ar­rest­ed in the days fol­low­ing the mur­ders but were re­leased short­ly af­ter due to a lack of ev­i­dence. Both are still alive.

An of­fi­cer as­sured that while no charges have yet been laid, of­fi­cers from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions Re­gion I con­tin­ue to work on the case. How­ev­er, as more time pass­es, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an ar­rest or charges be­ing laid grows slim­mer with each pass­ing year.

(BOX)

Last week, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from re­porters at a me­dia brief­ing at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Wednes­day, Dr Row­ley said the is­sue of chil­dren be­ing vic­tims of crime and be­ing ex­posed to vi­o­lent in­flu­ences was raised at the re­cent Cari­com meet­ing.

Re­fer­ring to con­ver­sa­tions with Prime Min­is­ter of St Kitts and Nevis Ter­rence Drew, Row­ley said a lack of guid­ance is the con­trib­u­tor to these be­hav­iours.

“A child who is dam­aged, be­ing a dan­ger­ous child and by dam­aged he means a child who has ex­pe­ri­enced or is ex­pe­ri­enc­ing vi­o­lence in the home or who is be­ing brought up with­out any sem­blance of what we loose­ly call train­ing or val­ues and un­for­tu­nate­ly those in­stances are be­com­ing more and more plen­ti­ful in our so­ci­ety.

“We can all un­der­stand the trau­ma of the fam­i­ly when an in­ci­dent takes place, but I want us all to un­der­stand that this is not an iso­lat­ed ac­tion.”