The godmother of Jadel Holder, who along with his brother, Jamal Brathwaite, was shot dead on Sunday afternoon denied reports the nine-year-old was a budding criminal. Instead the woman, who spoke with the media at the Forensic Science Centre, St James, and did not want to be identified, said the child was a “momma’s boy.” “The child is not a dropout from school. He attends Morvant New Government Primary School. He was always one footstep away from his mother. The child is not a dropout. “He never rob nobody. He get caught up,” the woman said.
She added his older brother, the 15-year-old Brathwaite, had been involved in illegal activity because of “circumstances” and “used to get advantaged (bullied),” as well as the entire family. She categorically denied all media reports that Jadel was a criminal. “They say the nine-year-old child was wanted for robbery, that is a lie. It hurt me to hear that this morning. “It hurt me to hear that they cast him like that. It was unfortunate what happened to him and it is not fair for anyone to stigmatise him like that. “He is an innocent child. I just want the public to know that he was an innocent child,” she said, adding that the children had a hard life with their father dying of cancer some years ago and their mother falling ill recently.
The brothers had just had lunch at their home at Petunia Avenue, Coconut Drive, Morvant, around 3 pm when two gunmen raided the small two-storey duplex, police said. Homicide detectives said the intruders ordered the brothers to lie facedown on the floor of the living room, before shooting each one in the back of the head at close range. The shooting was witnessed by their mother Michelle Holder and their 16-year-old cousin Glendel Alexander. Police said while the gunmen did not appear to target the brothers’ relatives, on seeing the shooting, Alexander reportedly got up and tried to leave the room by going upstairs but one of the gunmen shot him once in the right leg. The attackers then escaped.