Two die on boat run to Barbados

by Omesha Spence 06.MAR.09

Selma Layne should have been celebrating her son’s birthday on Wednesday, March 4. Instead, she is preparing to get his body shipped back to St. Vincent and the Grenadines for burial.{{more}}

Selma had always warned her son to stay out of trouble and she is now wondering if it is trouble itself that led to his mysterious death.

Rajeke ‘Sizzla’ Layne, 25, of Barrouallie, and Anthonio ‘Scoopa’ Williams, of Lowmans Leeward, were found dead, floating in the waters off the coast of Barbados on Sunday, 1st March, and Thursday, February 27, 2009, respectively.

Layne, who had not seen her son in three weeks, in desperation came to Searchlight earlier this week seeking answers to what may have led to her son’s death.

According to Layne, she received a telephone call on Sunday night from her son’s girlfriend, Joziana Roberts, stating that her son was dead. “I get frightened,” Layne related. She then handed the phone to her daughter who spoke to Roberts then relayed the shocking news to her mother. “She tell me Peke drown in ah Barbados sea,” she said.

Peke, as he is called by his mother, was found floating off the coast of St. Michael, Barbados. Williams’ body was found in the Christ Church area.

Roberts said on the Sunday that Rajeke was found, she received an anonymous telephone call stating that Rajeke was dead. Up to that time, neither Selma nor Roberts knew anything about how Rajeke got to Barbados or how he was associated with Anthonio Williams.

“Me ain’t know not one thing.” Sounding both grieved and confused, Rajeke’s mother said, “I hearing all kinda different thing.”

Roberts also remains in the dark about the event leading up to Rajeke’s death. “All I hear is that he drown,” she said, holding back tears.

Rajeke’s girlfriend Joziana, however let the tears flow as she spoke about the plans they had for Rajeke’s birthday, which was Wednesday 4 March. “We were supposed to spend the day together, now he wouldn’t even get to celebrate his birthday,” she said. Roberts began dating Rajeke around November of last year. Rajeke has one son from a previous relationship. Roberts, who last spoke to Rajeke the day after Valentine’s weekend, remembers the conversation fondly as he sang to her over the phone.

Selma, a mother of seven also remembers her son as a good boy, who always cared for her. “From day one coming up, he was always a nice boy to me,” she recalled.

Selma, originally from Barrouallie said that Rajeke had lived with her while he was growing up but left just recently to live in Questelles. Since then, she said, her son had become distant. “Sometimes me had to call him… me ain’t know a living thing,” she said. She however remembers the advice she always gave to her son. “I used to say, Peke keep from trouble… keep from trouble,” she said.

The bodies of both Anthonio Williams and Rajeke Layne are currently in Barbados. A post mortem was done on Williams’s body and revealed a death by drowning. Up to press time, a post mortem had not been conducted on Layne’s body.