Uncle of murdered Freeport man tells youths: Be productive

A Freeport man is calling on youths to find something constructive to do with their time after his nephew was murdered during an attempted robbery.

Speaking with the media at the Forensic Science Centre in St James on Tuesday, Deryck Charles said the killers made off with just a cellphone.

“That was real pettiness. The youths and them need to wise up and try and find themselves in this time because it is a sad state right now. The world in a mess.”

Charles said he was at home, just behind his brother’s Calcutta No. 1, Freeport home when, at about 2 pm, he heard a gunshot shot and rushed to his brother’s home where he found Kwesi Cox naked and bleeding.

The 32-year-old was unemployed, Charles said, but would do odd jobs and sometimes sell cold drinks whenever he could.

Charles said the criminals went to rob Cox’s father who operates a fruit stall outside his home. The gunmen ordered the businessman into his home and, while doing so, the father shouted out “bandits” and ran through his house.

One of the men fired, and Cox, who just stepped out of the bathroom, was shot in the neck. He was taken to the Couva Health Facility where he was declared dead.

“He liked to drink and lime. He always used to say he wanted to drive a BMW in the future. That was his goal, but it was never accomplished,” Charles said of his nephew.

He added that the family has not been coping well.

“That was a shocker. You would always see these things on the TV and never really know until it hits home. It was real hard. Right now the family not taking it too right at all.”

After shooting Cox, the bandits ran off with a cellphone they took from one of two of his father’s friends who were liming with him before entering the house.