Gruesome find

Twenty-five-year-old Kevin Atherley left his Padmore Village, St Philip address around 6 o’clock this morning for work, but never made it.

Just before noon his lifeless body was discovered on a cart-road in the parish reportedly with multiple chop wounds, and a bicycle next to him.

Outraged at his death, the family is today searching for answers as the police appeal to residents with information about the incident to come forward.

At around 11:10 a.m. Thursday police received an anonymous call that there was a body in a section of a caneground along a track in Harrow Road, St Philip.

When the police arrived several residents had already gathered at the rural location as news of the gruesome discovery spread.

Atherley’s death brings to 36, the number of murders in Barbados for the year.

When a Barbados TODAY team arrived on the scene several family members, some of whom were called away from work, were seen consoling each other.

Neighbours described the news as shocking and sad, as they converged on a section of the roadway leading to the crime scene.

Father of the deceased, Carson Atherley, was too distraught to speak at length but would only tell Barbados TODAY he hoped someone would pay.

“They butchered my son. They wait in ambush for my son,” he said, as he fought back tears.

The deceased, a labourer, used the path twice daily to go to the Crane where he was doing some work, and to return home.

After composing himself, brother of the deceased Damian Franklin, spoke passionately about the former Princess Margaret student who he said was a “fun person”.

“He would do anything for you. He used to always wash my car and I used to always carry him out,” said Franklyn, adding that whenever they go out and Atherley got drunk he would take him home to sleep “and laugh at him”.

“He did believe in me. He would clean my car non-stop because he did like cars bad. He believed in car racing. He is not somebody to do anybody anything. He is not going to interfere with you. You got to interfere with him first,” he insisted.

A distraught Franklyn, who is affectionately known as Frankie, told Barbados TODAY he had a “funny” feeling that something bad was happening this morning, but he thought it had something to do with one of his sons.

“I was playing music and got this funny feeling like somebody was interfering with one of my own, one of my sons. It is almost as if I could see people holding me and pulling me back and I couldn’t understand why,” said the father of two.

“I couldn’t understand, so when I left home and got by the Princess Margaret School I looked up into the school to see if I see my son or if there was a crowd. It was when I get in Haggatt Hall a girl called me and told me that her father called her and told her that somebody got chop up and dead, the police down there and it look as if it is Frankie brother,” he explained.

It was then he said he put on his hazard lights and sped to the location. “When I see, it was my brother chop up like a dog.”

One female cousin described Atherley as the one in the family to help stop a quarrel.

A friend who was consoling Franklyn, told Barbados TODAY she could vouch for Atherley, adding that the family was not lying about how loving, helpful and fun he was.

“It is the truth because all the years that I knew the family I never hear about him in anything or interfering with anybody. He not even used to go out unless he was going out with us. So it was going out with us, back home, and work, home, work and home. He never even used to go outside and lime. We are not saying this because we are family,” she insisted.

Police have now launched an investigation into the unnatural death.

Acting Inspector Police Public Relations Officer Rodney Inniss appealed to anyone with information relating to the discovery to come forward.

He said police at the District ‘C’ Police station received the call from around 11:10 a.m. and “on arrival they discovered the badly wounded body of a male in a cart road about 200 or 300 metres from the main area of Harrow Road in St Philip”.

“The police will continue to do a professional job and get to the bottom of this. Of course, we need the public’s help. We rely on the public to give us information and help us solve mysteries like this one. I am sure that again we will work together to solve this one,” he said.

Police have offered counselling to the family to help them through their time of mourning.
marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb