Life no longer has value in SVG – stepfather of slain young man

As the homicide rate continues to rise here, Nicholas Laidlow, stepfather of slain van conductor, Keron Hadaway says it is as if life no longer has value in this multi-island state.

“Right now, people just killing people for $200, a shoes, a pants. All them doltishness going on in this country and people have it as a game.

“Killing is a game in St. Vincent because you kill people, you go jail and sit down and that’s it,” Laidlow told SEARCHLIGHT last week, one day after Hadaway’s murder.

Hadaway was shot and killed in Fire Hill, Ottley Hall on Tuesday, February 7 at about 7:45 p.m. He was on the minibus on which he worked. Caldo Neverson, the chauffeur of the van was also wounded in the gun attack but survived.

Laidlow said convicted murderers are getting sentences of “14 years or 16 years” after which they return to society and commit more murders.

“It is time enough for them to make a change in this country which means hanging have to be back in St. Vincent.

“You kill a man wilfully, the next day, we ain’t putting you up, straight gallows one time. You have to make an example of people who doing this thing because is something that continue going on, continue going on,” Laidlow stressed.

Keron Hadaway

He said that when he was growing up, he and his peers would play football and if there was a little dispute, they would argue and move on.

“The next day, come on, we like good buddies, but these days people ain’t telling you that, they come, they wait for you to kill you and that’s it,” the bereaved man said.

What is worse is that after a killing, the culprit sometimes brags about what he did, he added.

“They go on the block, they lime, they skin dey teeth. The next day you see dey dress up socks and boots, pants and shirt, all them stupidness dey. You killing somebody for $400 which means, you give life and you can take life?

“These are the things that going on in this country and the authorities is not doing anything,” Laidlow commented to SEARCHLIGHT.

He claimed that the authorities sometimes hold conversations with gangsters but there is no positive results from these talks.

“Knowing who doing these things and not doing nothing to it -so which mean you’re encouraging what going on in this country because St. Vincent come worse than Trinidad.

“I mean to say Trinidad is a big place and St. Vincent is a small country but I mean to say the kind of things going on in this country…right now people can’t even walk the road as late as they want to walk,” Laidlow complained.

He said that robbers will take advantage of meeting someone on the road after hours and these acts are being perpetrated by young people who do not want to work for an honest dollar.

“All they want to do, pick up a gun, they meet you on the road and they take your money,” Laidlow complained, while adding that parents should guide their children instead of leaving them to be raised by negative elements on blocks.

“They pick up a gun because a gun is power for them,” said Laidlow. He noted that students go to school and come out with nothing to show.

“The authorities in this country need to do something better that what they doing right now. The crime rate is too high in a small country like this,” Laidlow stressed.

The homicide rate here now stands at nine, as one day after Laidlow spoke to SEARCHLIGHT, Perlinea “Sunshine” Greaves, a 28-year-old timekeeper of Dorsetshire Hill was shot in the head.
Greaves was wounded on Thursday night and died as a result of her injuries at the Milton Cato Memorial Hospital (MCMH) on Friday, February 10.

A release from the police said in part that Greaves was approached and shot in the head by an unknown assailant in Dorsetshire Hill on Thursday, February 9, 2023, at about 8:30 pm.