Family of murdered Mayaro man 'coping'

Joel Ellis -
Joel Ellis -

Repeatedly told that he would no longer see his father alive, the six-year-old son of a Mayaro murder victim now sees striking similarities between his older brother and their father.

The first-year student of Mafeking Government primary school often tells his brother, 14: "You (are) looking like Daddy."

So said the boys’ mother, Rachael Isaac, on Thursday.

In January, Joel Kevin Ellis, 37, was gunned down at a construction site in Mafeking. Ellis, also called Radio and Duncan, was the father of two.

To date, no one has been arrested.

On Thursday, Isaac, Ellis’s common-law wife, told Newsday the family is still trying to cope with the loss.

Issac said her younger son initially did not seem to have understood the concept of death.

"After we (relatives) told him (about the death), he still continued asking for his father. He wanted to know when his father would be coming home," Isaac said.

"He used dreams about his father. He had problems sleeping. But now, it has eased up a lot. We are ok. We told him that where Granny gone, Daddy gone there too."

Issac was referring to Ellis’s mother Lucille Ellis, who died in July 2020 after she suffered a stroke.

A week before Ellis’ murder, he bade farewell to his only sister, Joanne Ellis, 38. The mother of three died from cancer.

The matriarch and her only two adult children were buried next to each other at the Radix cemetery in Mayaro.

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"Family of murdered Mayaro man ‘coping’"

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