The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

GRIEVING parents of five teenagers killed in the Shirley Street crash have been left distressed after a roadside memorial was cleared without warning, depriving them of the chance to retrieve photographs and other items honouring their children.

The memorial marked the site where Keno Gordon Jr, 19; Diamond Stubbs, 17; Betrica Brown, 18; Evalena “Lilly” Johnson, 19; and Stania Webb, 19, were killed.

Up to press time, The Tribune was unable to determine who ordered or carried out the removal.

Damian Stubbs, Diamond’s father, said he discovered workers digging at the site when he visited Shirley Street on Monday after building up the courage to return to the scene.

He said seeing the memorial disturbed compounded his grief.

He said he walked away before returning to put some of the items back in place.

“From I come there and I meet them throwing dirt on top of it, I wanted to lick somebody out but I say I ain’t gonna say nothing,” he said.

He initially believed the work involved water infrastructure and did not realise the memorial was being removed.

At his wife’s urging, he returned yesterday morning hoping to retrieve photographs, but found the memorial gone.

Mr Stubbs began contacting the other victims’ families after discovering the removal.

He travelled to Cat Island yesterday and spoke with Stania’s father, who was also apparently unaware that the memorial had been cleared.

Mr Stubbs said the families should at least have been notified and allowed to collect the items most meaningful to them.

“If they had approached us, we would have moved what we wanted and if they wanted to get rid of whatever at least they could have given us the opportunity to say what we had to move, if only the girls’ pictures,” he said.

He had hoped to retrieve a photograph of Diamond from the memorial and take it with him to Cat Island.

“I went there to get that this morning to take to Cat Island and to put that above my bedhead, and that ain’t there,” he said.

Mr Stubbs said the families may also have wanted to place some of the photographs at the teenagers’ gravesites.

He questioned why the entire memorial was removed while a large tree stump remained at the scene.

Addressing those responsible, he said: “Tell those people Mr Stubbs say find his daughter picture because I’m coming for it.”

Shantika Williams-McQueen, Keno’s mother, said she had not known the memorial was gone and had not yet been able to bring herself to visit the crash site.

“I’ve not built myself up to even go there as yet,” she said.

Ms Williams-McQueen said the memorial should have been allowed to remain longer, particularly because the families were still grieving and the burial process had not yet been completed.

“I can’t speak for everybody, but especially at this time, you know that there’s still a lot of grieving and stuff going on,” she said. “There hasn’t even been, like, the funerals or anything like that for the complete burial of them as yet. I don’t think it should have been removed at this time.”

She said some of Keno’s friends had placed items at the memorial and she would have welcomed the chance to retrieve some of them for her son’s grave.