The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

and JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporters 

THE Shirley Street crash claimed a fifth life on Saturday, leaving one mother clinging to forgiveness after her 19-year-old son died in hospital while another demanded accountability after spending three agonising days in Canada trying to confirm whether her daughter was alive or dead.

Keno Gordon Jr, 19, died in the Intensive Care Unit after relatives and friends prayed for his recovery and circulated flyers appealing for blood donations.

His death raised the toll from the crash at the intersection of Shirley Street and Church Street to five.

The 19-year-old driver of the Mazda sedan was taken into custody over the weekend and is expected to be charged in court today, The Tribune understands.

The other victims of the crash were Diamond Stubbs, 17, Betrica Brown, 18, Evalena “Lilly” Johnson, 19, and Stania Webb, 19. The four young women grew up together in Cat Island.

Keno’s mother, Shantika Williams-McQueen, who said she had held onto hope as her son fought for his life, said: “Things happen, accident happen, mistakes happen. I don’t believe that he had any ill intentions towards any of them.”

Despite her grief, Mrs Williams-McQueen said she feels no anger towards the driver, who has faced public scrutiny after videos circulated on social media, including one showing him being visited by loved ones after the crash in a manner some relatives of the victims viewed as lacking remorse.

“I had very very high hopes,” she said, explaining that she believed her son could survive. “But I also trust God and serve God.”

Mrs Williams-McQueen said she visited the hospital every day, praying over her son, speaking life into him and encouraging him to keep fighting. She said she tried to remain calm during his final days, but broke down after receiving the call on Saturday morning that he had died.

“They were friends, they his family. I’m sure they were just out having a good time that night,” she said.

“I’m sure they probably — none of them never expected that this was going to happen. Life has it way and they was young, and you know starting life.”

Mrs Williams-McQueen said she knew the driver’s parents through Cat Island connections and that the driver and Keno grew up like family.

She said she did not know her son was going out that night. The night before the crash, she saw a post on his Facebook page encouraging her to message him. She said she wrote: “My king I cover you in the blood of Jesus,” and told him she loved him. He replied that he loved her too.

Keno graduated from Old Bight High School in Cat Island and was raised on the island by his grandmother and her husband after his mother decided it would be best for him to grow up there while she lived in New Providence. Mrs Williams-McQueen later moved to Exuma to be with her family.

She said she shared a close bond with her son, particularly after his father died.

Keno later moved to New Providence after graduating to live with relatives while seeking employment. His mother said he hoped to save enough money to attend college abroad and pursue his dream of becoming a professional basketball player.

At the time of the crash, she said, he was working for Royal Caribbean and had been due to start a new position at CocoCay the day after the accident.

Mrs Williams-McQueen described her son as kind, shy and determined. He loved Junkanoo, especially the Roots.

She recalled taking him on a recent trip abroad, where they spent quality time together. She said she brought him to a business seminar to show him that his opportunities were limitless. She had planned to take him on another trip, but he died before they had the chance.

For Dianna Wright, the mother of Evalena Johnson, the tragedy has been compounded by the trauma of being in Canada and spending days trying to determine whether her daughter was alive or dead.

Ms Wright, 42, said all of Evalena’s family live in the United States or Canada. She said she made repeated calls and sent relatives and friends to seek information after learning her daughter had been in the crash.

Police said Evalena was identified by family members on Tuesday.

“I don’t know how to put it into words,” Ms Wright said. “Even though I had sent someone, my father and another friend of mine, to identify the body, and they have told me that it confirmed that it is her, it still feels surreal.”

Evalena had travelled to The Bahamas from the United States, where she had recently relocated and was staying with relatives. Her mother said she attended a family funeral before later going out with cousins. Ms Wright was later told her daughter had been in the crash.

“Immediately we began calling around trying to get some information from the hospital, but according to them she had no ID on her, so she couldn’t be positively identified as one of the individuals in the accident,” she said.

Ms Wright said she was told that because Evalena had not been identified as one of the crash victims, relatives had to file a missing person report with traffic police.

The mother said she struggled to understand why it took days to confirm her daughter’s identity. According to information relayed to her by relatives who later reviewed official documents, Evalena died shortly after arriving at the hospital early Sunday morning.

“I get that they have rules and procedures that the hospital has to follow, but somebody was at the hospital from Sunday,” she said. “I called. I spoke to nurses. I spoke to people at the hospital on Sunday.

“Just tell me. I get that there’s privacy for other persons, but sitting here and not being able to get there to do anything, come on. There’s somebody else’s daughter. It was traumatising.”

Ms Wright said relatives and friends repeatedly tried to obtain information, including by visiting the hospital and morgue, but were met with procedural obstacles. She said her father and a friend went to the hospital on Monday but were not allowed to view anything.

Her frustration deepened, she said, after learning that Evalena had been among the victims who died earlier in the aftermath of the crash.

Evalena’s death came as she was beginning a new chapter.

Ms Wright said her daughter had been living in the United States for about four months after spending roughly a year and a half in Canada, where she completed high school and graduated last year.

“She literally had just found a job days before,” Ms Wright said. “She had just applied to colleges days before travelling.”

Her daughter had been completing university applications with the help of an aunt who encouraged her to consider the medical field.

But Ms Wright said Evalena had her own dream: becoming a beautician. She said her daughter was talented at doing hair and often styled boys’ cornrows, cousins’ hair and her mother’s hair.

She described a young woman who was quiet at first but unforgettable once people got to know her.

“Anybody who knew Lilly knew Lilly was bubbly,” she said.

“She was more of a shy girl who had to kind of get to know you first. She wasn’t the type to walk into a crowd and immediately the life of the party.

“But once you got to know her, you could not help but love her. She was very, very lovable and very humble.”

Evalena’s death came less than two years after her father died in December 2024, a loss Ms Wright said her daughter struggled to overcome. She said the nickname “Lilly” came from her father.

As the crash drew intense public attention, Ms Wright said she repeatedly watched videos circulating online, including footage of the collision itself and recordings involving the alleged driver.

“I dissected that 100 times,” she said.

“I’ve never seen an impact like that. It looked like an earthquake. The amount of dust and debris from the impact — it was shocking.”

Ms Wright said she was also disappointed by videos she believed showed a lack of remorse from the driver.

“I was disheartened when I saw it because it seemed that it was like a joke, you know.” she said.

She said the videos were painful because several families were grieving.

“It does not feel or look good,” she said.

Now, as relatives prepare to bring Evalena home, Ms Wright said the family will travel to retrieve her remains.

She said she was also hurt by how her daughter’s story was sometimes portrayed online in the days after the crash, saying she feared Evalena was being treated as an afterthought.

“Yesterday morning, waking up, I told myself I have to delete Facebook,” she said.

“I started to feel like I didn’t want her to become a forgotten like ‘three and, four and, five and’. No, it’s not ‘and’. She’s not an ‘and’. “She wasn’t out there being promiscuous. She wasn’t running away from home.”

Ms Wright also sought to address misconceptions surrounding the missing person report filed before Evalena was formally identified.

“We wouldn’t have put in a missing person’s report if the police had more information to go off of,” she said. “We put in that missing person report as a directive.”