I told him not to go outside! – Mother

If Kenron Antoine had been obedient to his mother, he would have lived to see his 17th birthday tomorrow.

Instead, his life was claimed during the passing of Tropical Storm Matthew early Wednesday night at Bethrimy, Layou, when a large rock above his house came loose and pinned him against the wall of his house, killing him almost immediately.

When SEARCHLIGHT sat down yesterday with Kenron’s mother Luween Antoine, she recalled that the two of them began the rainy night looking at a television news broadcast around 7 pm in their living room.{{more}}

“The news was on and I telling him about the news, and … he turned to me and told me I don’t want to hear nothing,” she recalled.

Luween said she then got up and went to the bathroom and observed that it was flooding.

“I get up and I go in the bathroom and I see water in the bathroom, so I say ‘Kenron, water in the bathroom, but don’t worry about that, we could deal with that tomorrow. Take your mattress and put it in my room if you don’t want to sleep on the bed with me.”

She said that her son dismissed her suggestion and instead, put on one of her jackets and started making his way out of their home, which is located at the side of a hill.

“I hold on to him and tell him not to go outside. ‘Kenron don’t go outside, don’t go down the road’.”

She said Kenron pulled away and went outside.

“I get back in the chair and I sit down and I put my hands to my jaw,” Luween said.

The distraught mother recalled that about two minutes later, she got up and called to her teenage son but did not get a response.

“I get up and I say ‘Kenron’, I don’t hear no answer. I go outside and I look to the side of the house. Kenron dey there between the big stone [and] I scream out.”

In a state of shock and horror, Luween recalled her neighbour inquiring what had happened and she replied, “Kenron dead, I tell Kenron not to come outside.”

Bewildered and distraught at having lost her second born, the mother ran down the hill at Bethrimy towards the Layou police station, which is located opposite the waterfront on the main road.

The police officers and Layou residents helped to remove her son’s body.

“Every time I think back about it my heart jumping,” Luween told SEARCHLIGHT while appearing still shaken up about the incident.

The mother described Kenron, a student at the Buccament Bay Secondary School as quiet, but disobedient.

“When I speak to him he does disobey me. If he didn’t disobey me, he never would’ve go outside,” said Luween.

She also dismissed reports that Kenron went outside to clear a drain, which resulted in his death.

“He wasn’t cleaning, he just went out, cause I ain’t send him go and clean nothing in rain, I told him not to go outside,” she reiterated.

Residents believe that Kenron had gone to find out what was the source of the water that was leaking into the house and the investigation that caused his death.

Kenron is the second child that Luween has lost. On August 9, 2007, her first child, Javon “John Wayne” Antoine died at the age of 20, when two masked gunmen stormed a house at Lowmans Leeward and committed a triple murder.

Luween also has a 13-year-old daughter who is currently overseas seeking medical attention.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that the incident was the first time a natural disaster had caused a stone to become loose in that area, adding that she has since been instructed not to return to the house.

Kenron was the only reported fatality during the passing of Tropical Storm Matthew. (AS)