by Adrian Codogan

In the days leading up to the murder-arson-suicide that took place in Chateaubelair last weekend, there are reports that Keno Franklyn may have given hints about what he intended to do.

On Sunday, June 7, 39-year-old Franklyn brutally {{more}}hacked to death his former girlfriend, 35-year-old Shardine Monisia Johnson, before taking his own life by ingesting a poisonous substance.

Relatives say Franklyn and Johnson began their courtship in the summer of 2012 and began living together that same year. About one month ago, Johnson moved out of the rented home she shared with Franklyn at Plan Village, back to her family home at Cocoa Village.

After Johnson left, friends say Franklyn began to drink excessively and wasn’t looking after himself. One person told SEARCHLIGHT that Franklyn was planning to go overseas to meet his mother and had already taken out a passport.

Shardine’s mother, Viviette Johnson/Lavia told SEARCHLIGHT that about two weeks ago, Franklyn came to the gate of their home, under the pretext of visiting a neighbour and began cursing Shardine, who was sitting on the porch, telling her to come and get her things out of his place and that they just had ‘a little thing’ and she took it seriously.

Viviette said that Keno had accused Shardine of cheating, and after that incident, kept calling and harassing her daughter on her mobile phone and on the family’s landline, prompting Shardine to go away to the Windward side of the island for a week, returning last Friday, having changed her mobile telephone number.

Many persons in the area have reported to SEARCHLIGHT that during the week prior to the incident, Franklyn called a close relative and told her that he was going to do something and she should not be upset with him. It has also been reported that he told her that if anything happens to him, he would want her to have his car. SEARCHLIGHT has, however, been unable to confirm these reports with Franklyn’s relative.

On the morning that she was killed, Viviette said her daughter received a called from Franklyn, asking her to come to his house to collect her furniture, as a truck from Fitz-Hughes was on the way to move the items for her.

Johnson got to Franklyn’s house at about 7:30 that morning and a few minutes after she entered the house, persons in the street heard screams and then saw smoke coming from the building.

Roxanne James, who was sitting with a friend on a bench close to the road told SEARCHLIGHT that she ran to the house and encountered Johnson on the porch with a large chop wound going from the side of the neck round to the back.

She was covered in blood.

“I had to run back; I was really frightened seeing so much blood,” James said.

James said she called for help and for someone to bring a cloth to cover the wounds. A nearby car took Shardine to the Chateaubelair Health Centre, where she died at approximately 9:10 a.m., a police report said.

James said that Johnson told them that Keno had chopped her, set the mattress afire, locked the doors, then left the house.

Villagers took about 45 minutes to put out the fire, but when they looked inside the building, Franklyn was nowhere to be found.

They, however, noticed that his food was already cooked and his clothes were pressed and hanging, as if he were preparing to go to church as usual at the Chateaubelair Grace and Truth Assembly, located about 150 feet away from his house.

Not finding Franklyn in the house, residents began searching the bushes above the house, where a jug containing gramoxone was found. A wider search of the area initially proved futile. However, Franklyn was later found under some bushes at an abandoned property, close to the Chateaubelair Methodist School by a woman who was tending her sheep.

He was taken into custody, then taken to the Chateaubelair hospital, following which he was transferred to the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital in Kingstown, where he died at 9:40 p.m., according to a police report.

A post mortem was conducted on both bodies Monday.

Johnson will be buried on Sunday, June 28, at Chateaubelair.