KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

De­spite leav­ing his job at a pop­u­lar restau­rant last week, San Fer­nan­do fa­ther Ken Wilkin­son was prepar­ing to start his own busi­ness, de­ter­mined to pro­vide for his daugh­ters and take con­trol of his fu­ture.

How­ev­er, one phone call end­ed that dream, as he was gunned down soon af­ter near his Pleas­antville home on Sat­ur­day night.

Po­lice said Wilkin­son, 38, of Or­chid Gar­dens, was at home when, around 7 pm, he re­ceived a tele­phone call. He left a few min­utes lat­er. Ten min­utes af­ter that, gun­shots rang out along Bras­sia Dri­ve. Res­i­dents soon found Wilkin­son ly­ing mo­tion­less on the road­way.

A South­ern Di­vi­sion Task Force pa­trol re­spond­ed to a wire­less trans­mis­sion of the shoot­ing and found Wilkin­son bleed­ing from mul­ti­ple wounds. There were no oth­er per­sons on the road­way to be in­ter­viewed. Of­fi­cers checked for signs of life, but he was al­ready dead. They cor­doned off the scene and await­ed Mon Re­pos po­lice and de­tec­tives from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion Three.

A Dis­trict Med­ical Of­fi­cer vis­it­ed the scene, ex­am­ined the body and or­dered its re­moval to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal mor­tu­ary, be­fore trans­fer to the Foren­sic Sci­ence Cen­tre in St James for a post-mortem ex­am­i­na­tion. Crime Scene In­ves­ti­ga­tors pho­tographed and processed the scene, re­triev­ing a few items.

Up to yes­ter­day, no ar­rests had been made and the mo­tive re­mained un­known.

Speak­ing at their home yes­ter­day, Wilkin­son’s aunt, Emel­da Wilkin­son, said he had left the house af­ter the phone call, but she was un­aware of where he had gone. Around 8 pm, her broth­er asked her to ac­com­pa­ny him to a su­per­mar­ket in San Fer­nan­do. While re­vers­ing out of the yard, a neigh­bour cau­tioned them against dri­ving east, warn­ing that there was a body on the road. She left for the su­per­mar­ket, not know­ing it was her nephew.

Lat­er, her niece called to tell her that Wilkin­son had died. Emel­da said she did not be­lieve the news im­me­di­ate­ly, need­ing to ver­i­fy such hor­ri­ble in­for­ma­tion. Al­though she was at home when Wilkin­son was shot, she said she did not hear the gun­shots, which oc­curred about eight to ten hous­es away.

Emel­da said she had nev­er heard of any threats to her nephew’s life. He had re­cent­ly worked at the Ris­ing Star Restau­rant and left last Tues­day, cit­ing dis­sat­is­fac­tion with work­place is­sues. She ad­mit­ted that he gam­bled but em­pha­sised he al­ways spent his earn­ings on his daugh­ters, aged four and six.

“I know he does gam­ble, but he used his mon­ey, not so. He is all for his chil­dren. When he or­gan­ised and got his mon­ey, he al­ways spent it on his chil­dren. He made sure his chil­dren were al­right. He has two girls, and he made sure that when he got his mon­ey, he would make sure and put it to good use for his chil­dren,” Emel­da said.

She showed a cart in the garage, ex­plain­ing that Wilkin­son was prepar­ing to start a chow busi­ness in San Fer­nan­do and Princes Town and was gath­er­ing equip­ment. She said he did not want peo­ple to talk down to him and want­ed to be his own boss, build­ing some­thing for his chil­dren’s fu­ture.

Emel­da said the mur­der had left her con­fused, adding Wilkin­son’s moth­er had been con­stant­ly cry­ing. She said his moth­er faint­ed when she ar­rived at the scene and saw her son ly­ing dead on the road­way.

“Very sad. I do not know how to put it. Dev­as­tat­ed,” Wilkin­son’s aunt said.

She added that crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go was “ter­ri­ble, ridicu­lous and sad.”