What was ex­pect­ed to be a day of ju­bi­la­tion for Geor­gio Young — his moth­er’s birth­day and his step­son’s grad­u­a­tion — end­ed in tragedy when he was fa­tal­ly gunned down.

Young, 23, was mur­dered by his child­hood friend dur­ing an al­ter­ca­tion at Per­se­ver­ance Street, a short dis­tance away from his home in Tar­o­dale, Ste Madeleine, on Thurs­day. Young was un­der a house around 2.30 pm when he got in­to an al­ter­ca­tion with the sus­pect. Dur­ing the strug­gle, the sus­pect’s firearm re­port­ed­ly fell to the ground. How­ev­er, he quick­ly re­trieved it and shot Young sev­er­al times. Young col­lapsed in a near­by drain while the sus­pect fled the scene. Rel­a­tives rushed him to the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead at 3.09 pm.

At their Hope Street home yes­ter­day, Young’s rel­a­tives could not con­tain their grief. His heart­bro­ken moth­er, Sal­isha, 48, said Young went to check on his friends while he wait­ed for her to get dressed for his step­son’s grad­u­a­tion.

He was sup­posed to re­turn home to fin­ish get­ting ready and leave with them. In­stead, she got a phone call that he had been shot and was ly­ing in a drain. He was un­re­spon­sive when she got to the scene.

While ad­mit­ting that Young was no saint, his moth­er claimed he sold mar­i­jua­na, but was al­so self-em­ployed as a labour­er and land­scap­er. She be­lieves jeal­ousy was the rea­son he was killed. Her son’s al­leged killer was his friend.

“They al­ways to­geth­er. They eat and drink and lime every­thing to­geth­er. That is his good friend, his boy, his dog as they is call them.”

Lament­ing that Young would have cel­e­brat­ed his birth­day on Ju­ly 18, she warned young peo­ple about the com­pa­ny they keep.

“Let Je­sus be al­lyuh best friend. That is the on­ly per­son who re­al­ly tru­ly love al­lyuh and care, Je­sus. Al­lyuh doh have no friend. Don’t have more than your friends, they will kill you. Jeal­ousy kills and your friends is kill you too.”

While her son was in the drain dy­ing, she said his mon­ey, jew­ellery and bag were stripped off him. The items — ex­cept for his mon­ey — were even­tu­al­ly re­turned to rel­a­tives. Young had one oth­er step­son, age sev­en, and a two-year-old son.

Young’s moth­er, who has six chil­dren, said she had a close re­la­tion­ship with all of them.

“We live good, we don’t have much but we have love.” She was con­fi­dent the new gov­ern­ment would put mea­sures in place to curb the mur­ders in the coun­try. “It ridicu­lous. It is over­bear­ing. Not un­til it reach your doorstep you will know how se­ri­ous it is,” she lament­ed.

Po­lice re­cov­ered two live rounds of 9mm am­mu­ni­tion, a pro­jec­tile, and one spent shell cas­ing at the scene.

The sus­pect was still at large up to yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. Of­fi­cers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau of In­ves­ti­ga­tions, Re­gion 3, are con­tin­u­ing in­quiries.