Mother grieves over slain son

The mother of the young man who was found bleeding at the side of the road at Cane Garden, St Thomas, where he eventually died, wants her son’s killer(s) found before he goes to his grave.

A devastated Joan Benn who last saw her 35-year-old son Barry Taylor at their Shop Hill, St Thomas home just over an hour before his bloody and lifeless body was discovered with stab wounds around 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday said she just wants justice for her child.

Joan Benn mourning the loss of her son Barry Taylor .

She said she last saw Taylor around 5 p.m. that same day when he told her ‘good evening mummy’, to which she replied ‘good evening Barry’.

He then told her he was leaving.

“I want them hold before the week done. Before Barry get in he grave I want them hold,” the sobbing mother told Barbados TODAY.

“I just feel empty. It is unbelievable. I ain’t supposed to bury he; he is supposed to bury me. Everybody trying to hold up. Everybody trying to cope with it because it is not easy,” she added.

Benn said she received the tragic news about the death of the first of her three children from a co-worker who was passing the area on her way home.

“She saw him, recognized he was my son and she came and told me. I could not believe it. A gentleman who lives not too far from there saw him take his last breath. He said he was stumbling and then he dropped down,” she said, as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

As she wiped the tears away with a blue washcloth, the mother said she has been struggling to understand why somebody would have carried out such an act on Taylor whom she described as someone who did not “get into anything”.

“He would be in and out. He would be in Shop Hill and Jackson and sometimes he would go in town and come home quick. He would be in and out, but in the area,” she said.

The Shop Hill community was quiet when Barbados TODAY visited the area this morning. Most of Taylor’s family members were locked away in their houses, which are all situated close to each other.

His aunt Betty Springer said she knew her nephew to be one to run away from crowds. She said most of Tuesday he was at home listening to music.

“I can’t believe it. I helped to raise him. Barry doesn’t trouble you. Up to yesterday Barry was home playing his music. Barry doesn’t trouble you so I don’t know how this happen. This thing got everybody shocked. I went to the scene but I could not go close to the body. I could not look at my nephew that way,” the aunt said.

Benn said Taylor was a former St Leonard’s Boys student who loved playing football and had represented Shop Hill in that sport.

A resident who lives close to the scene told Barbados TODAY the image of Taylor’s mother sitting in a chair crying as she watched her son’s body waiting to be removed from the scene, was a sad sight that he believed would stay with him for a long.

“That ain’t nothing no mother should have to go through. I don’t understand why all of this killing and violence,” the concerned resident said.