NICHOLAS AND ROXANNE LAIDLOW, mother and stepfather of deceased Keron Hadaway (Right).

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February 10, 2023

Cops knew my son was target – Mom

Roxanne Laidlow, the mother of slain van conductor, 28 year-old Keron Hadaway, said there was intelligence that her son was going to be murdered but no one acted on it.

The Edinboro/Lodge Village woman’s first son was shot and killed in Fire Hill, Ottley Hall on Tuesday, February, 7 at about 7:45 p.m. Caldo Neverson, the chauffeur of the minibus on which Hadaway was a conductor, was also wounded in the gun attack but survived.

Reports indicate that Neverson, 29, and Hadaway were operating an omnibus when it was approached and shots were fired.

But while a police press release is asking persons with any knowledge of the incident to provide that information to them Hadaway’s mother said the police had intelligence on which they could have acted and persons are reluctant to deal with investigators.

“He was getting threats, guys were sending threats to him and I use to always be talking to him telling him try not to be on the road late, try to get home in a due time because you don’t know when the minute and when the hour will come,” Laidlow said from her Lodge Village home on Wednesday, February, 8.

She said Hadaway told her that someone from the Rose Place area had threatened him late last year, while one of Hadaway’s friends said Hadaway received a threat a few days ago from a dreadlocked youth who hangs around in Rose Place.

Laidlow said that on Monday, she was informed that a police officer told her son and another man that they heard “some shot going to lick, and they say somebody going to get dead”.

“…and he ( police officer) turn to Keron and the driver and telling them is not the driver is ‘me (Keron) they want to kill’ so the owner asked him ‘what is going on?’ and Keron said he safe he don’t trouble people, but he know they want to kill him,” Laidlow said.

She thinks that if the names of persons were being mentioned in relation to a planned murder, the police should have detained these persons for questioning and this might have caused the persons involved to change their minds.

NICHOLAS AND ROXANNE LAIDLOW, mother and stepfather of deceased Keron Hadaway.

“I think in St. Vincent, the reason why Vincentian people don’t want to give police information, police is not trustworthy,” the grieving mother charged.

“Because if you see something and want to give police information, police will go back and call your name for the people them and that is not nice, so that is why when people see things they don’t want to talk because police does go back and call your name for the people them when they should be confidential.”

Laidlow claimed that she thinks her son’s affiliation with a group called the “Bee Hive” may have led to his death as he is not a troublesome person, but may have been brought guilty under street law by his affiliation with the group, said to have originated in the Paul’s Avenue

area. “Even my child dey in a group and you and the group have a war, I don’t think you have to target my child.You target the person who and you have war. My child ain’t have no war with you,” she argued.

“And I tell him Keron, you know you dey in the Bee Hive and you done know they can’t get to the bigger heads in the Bee Hive so they targeting the weak heart and them in the Bee Hive because you done know what going on,” Laidlow related.

She said that when she heard her son was going to work on a minibus, she told him to be careful.

“So I said ‘you going on van and work, you know you have to watch your back because they done targeting yo and yo know they want kill yo’…so he say ‘yeah mommy, I good man, because you know me and nobody ain’t dey in war so if they have to kill me they have to catch me off guard’ so me say ‘Keron, I begging you watch yo back, watch yo back’ and that was Monday,” Laidlow recalled.

She said she would send prayers for her son every morning via WhatsApp and he would answer “thank you mommy, I safe.”

“If I hear somebody get shoot, the first person I calling is him because I know they out for him,” she however stressed that Keron was not a troublesome person.

“He is a quiet youth man, he friendly, he respectable and he don’t trouble people at all so I can’t see the reason why somebody would go and kill my child, it’s really painful for me. Real painful,” Laidlow said, She added that

her son, the father of a two year old, would have celebrated his 29th birthday on February 15.

“I really feel the pain for him, he have one child, the child is two years old, and he don’t like dey home and ain’t working.

“Is not like a person if you call him for work he not going, he like work,” she said as to why Hadaway decided to work on a minivan after things slowed down on his job at the shipyard in Ottley Hall.

“I say they should bring back in hanging right now, too much of crime, too much killing, too much young people falling, too much.

“When I got the news my son died, it was like a shock to me because I know the people were targeting him to kill him but we never know it would have been like so serious,” Laidlow lamented.

“When I saw he post up the picture on his WhatsApp status that he going to work on a van…I asked him about the van and he said it belonged to Faceman and it name Tuff Land and he was the conductor.

“He is not a person who does make trouble, you see respect, he have that, you see manners, he have that, he would walk the road and you wouldn’t even know is he because he does walk the road so quiet.

“You could speculate things about him but he nah study that, once you don’t touch him, that’s it. I won’t hide up his fault if he had anything,” Laidlow told SEARCHLIGHT.

She said Hadaway did not want to move from Ottley Hall despite the danger he knew he was in as he lived with his ailing grandmother whom he cared for deeply.

Nicholas Laidlow, Hadaway’s stepfather said Hadaway grew up around him and his brothers looked up to him.

He said Hadaway was a “football scholar” who loved soccer and would talk and teach others about football.

“To tell the honest truth, I can’t understand this because as my wife say, that youth man don’t trouble a soul,” said Nicholas.

In 2016, Hadaway was charged that on May 2, 2016 at Ottley Hall he had in his possession 69 rounds of .22 ammunition, seven rounds of .40 ammunition and 14 rounds of 5.56 ammunition without a license, contrary to the Firearms Act.