The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

and EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporters

TWO unrelated killings hours apart on Saturday — one on a family doorstep, the other near a woman’s home — have left relatives grappling with how routine moments turned deadly.

Kenric Strachan, 24, was shot and killed outside his home on Mekel Close South while retrieving baby items from a vehicle. Hours later, Jenetta Thompson was fatally shot after being called over by a man believed to be known to her.

Strachan had celebrated his birthday just three days earlier. He leaves behind two sons: an eight-month-old baby and a toddler who will turn two next month.

His sister, Dakenya Lightbourne, said the shooting happened within seconds as he tried to get back inside.

“He went to the car to go and get some baby stuff out of the car and as he was walking back to come inside, he probably realised they pulled up on him, and he was running to come inside and when they shot him in his leg and his side, he fell,” she said.

“I was in the tub at the time, and I ran outside because I heard my sister screaming, and from that I know it was him and saw him on the floor, but he still had a pulse at the time.”

Family members rushed him for medical treatment, but he later died.

Relatives said the killing has been especially difficult to process because it happened in a yard they considered safe, where children regularly play.

“It’s not just traumatic for me as an adult, because, you know, we can always bounce back, but we have kids that like to be outside, in front of the door playing,” Ms Lightbourne said.

“It’s a yard where it’s secure, where cars don’t come speeding so knowing that one of our kids could have been outside at that time, that’s where the trauma comes in, and children having to see him on the floor was traumatic.”

She said her brother was private and kept his struggles to himself. She also said there was no indication he was involved in criminal activity.

“He was never arrested,” she said. “He was never locked up or charged or anything of that sort.

“He was well loved. He got along with everyone. The only way he didn’t get along with someone is if they didn’t get along with him, but otherwise, he was loved by almost the whole nation. A lot of people knew him. A lot of people loved him. He was a happy person, like everybody know him as a person who liked to dress up, he like to ride bike and he loved kids.”

His sister said he had been developing skills as a carpenter and electrician.

“We have to live with reality, but you know, you never gonna heal but it’s always going to be in and out, in and out, but you’re trying to stay strong, because you have the children, you have your mother, you have the rest of your siblings, and then somebody has to be strong at some point, but it’s gonna take a toll,” she said.

She said the family wants those responsible held accountable.

“We would want whoever did it to be put behind bars, and not just for a short time, but for a long time, because they actually murdered my brother for nothing,” she said. “There’s no explanation they can give us to say why he was murdered. Nobody can find a reason to say he did this, or we assume he did this or he affiliated with this or that or why he was murdered.”

Police said Strachan’s killing was one of two murders recorded on Saturday.

The second happened around 10.30pm on Adderley Street. Officers were told Thompson had been sitting with several men when another man believed to be known to her called her over. Shortly after she went to him, two gunshots were heard.

She was shot in the chest, upper back and right side and later died in hospital around 10.45pm.

Police said the suspect fled on an electric scooter.

A 35-year-old man was later arrested on Farrington Road and reportedly found with a firearm, ammunition and an electric scooter.