Heart­bro­ken over the loss of her on­ly child, Ker­ry Ann Ja­cob, the moth­er of mur­dered en­tre­pre­neur, Kay­lon Kashif Ja­cob, made an im­pas­sioned plea for gun­men to put down their weapons and find a more pos­i­tive lifestyle.

Ja­cob, 18, was gunned down while go­ing to de­liv­er food to some­one in his La Hor­quet­ta neigh­bour­hood on Sat­ur­day night.

Po­lice said res­i­dents on Ken Mor­ris Street, Phase Four, La Hor­quet­ta, heard gun­shots at around 9.45 pm and on check­ing saw the younger Ja­cob on the road cov­ered in blood. Po­lice were called in with a dis­trict med­ical of­fi­cer who de­clared Ja­cob dead.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Ja­cob’s home on Win­ston Mul­li­gan Dri­ve, Phase Four, on Sun­day and spoke with rel­a­tives who said they were still try­ing to un­der­stand the mo­tive for his mur­der.

Ja­cob’s moth­er said he was in the process of com­plet­ing an ad­vanced course in bar­ber­ing with the Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC).

She al­so said that Ja­cob owned a 24-hour bar­ber­ing busi­ness and a small fast food ser­vice, both of which he op­er­at­ed from the fam­i­ly’s home where he lived.

The moth­er said her son’s main pri­or­i­ties were his busi­ness­es and he was not known to be trou­ble­some.

Point­ing to his clip­pers, bar­ber­ing chair and oth­er equip­ment in the ve­ran­da of the fam­i­ly’s home, Ja­cob called for an­swers as to why her son was mur­dered.

She al­so hoped that crim­i­nals in the area would stop the blood­shed.

“I grew up in this com­mu­ni­ty and I would like to tell the youths of this com­mu­ni­ty to put down the guns.

“Every­body’s par­ents know each oth­er.

“Why kill some­body? For what?

“All I need to know is what they killed my son for? What was the rea­son?” she asked.

Ja­cob said on Sat­ur­day evening, her son bor­rowed her car to de­liv­er four fast food or­ders, but told him that she need­ed it to con­duct her own busi­ness too.

She said he tried to reach out to a God­broth­er and friend to help him de­liv­er the meals but was un­suc­cess­ful.

“He said okay and went ahead to make the de­liv­er­ies. We are liv­ing in a time with crime. But he knows he’s not in­volved in any­thing so he’s not look­ing back. He’s not ex­pect­ing any­body to come and shoot him,” she said.

“I was around the cor­ner, I didn’t even reach Ari­ma, all of a sud­den a friend of his saw my car and flagged me down and said Kay­lon dead.”

Ja­cob said her son’s mur­der was par­tic­u­lar­ly dev­as­tat­ing to the fam­i­ly as it hap­pened on what would have been his grand­moth­er’s birth­day.

His grand­moth­er died in 2021.

“She is turn­ing in her grave be­cause that was her on­ly grand­son,” the moth­er said.

“I nev­er ex­pect­ed this (crime) to reach home to me,” she added.

Ja­cob’s grand­fa­ther died from Covid-19.

She said her son showed a strong work eth­ic, agree­ing to take last minute ap­point­ments for hair­cuts in­to the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing.

She said he bought bar­ber­ing equip­ment by sav­ing mon­ey while oth­ers were gift­ed to him.

Re­fer­ring to him as a “moth­er’s boy,” Ja­cob said he would take oc­ca­sion­al chid­ings with­out talk­ing back.

She said she was still strug­gling to ac­cept his death as a re­al­i­ty.

“I haven’t got­ten to his bed­room yet but in my mind he is still sleep­ing up­stairs. Or maybe he went to church right now, he’ll fin­ish at 1 pm,” she added.

Ja­cob’s friends from the neigh­bour­hood al­so vis­it­ed his home to of­fer the fam­i­ly con­do­lences.

Po­lice from the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tion Re­gion II are con­tin­u­ing in­quiries.