Grieving woman asks killers: 'Why murder my son?'

AMIDST the grief and pain of losing her son, Isiah Blackman, a Diego Martin mother would still like to ask his killers one question: Why did you murder him?

Blackman, 26, was shot dead while sitting in the driver's seat of his green Mitsubishi Lancer outside his Ramjohn Trace, Eligon Avenue home on Tuesday night. The shooting caused Blackman to drive his car into a nearby lightpole. He died at the scene.

Speaking at the Forensic Science Centre, St James on Friday, Blackman's mother Maria Moosan-Blackman said she remembered her son as someone who did not provoke others and could not fathom why anyone would want to kill him.

"I want to find my son's killers, I want to ask them, why did you kill my son? Why did my son deserve to die like this? Why, can you tell me?

"My son left two children behind, a six-year-old and a four-year-old, who I have to see about. It not right for children to grow up without their father."

Newsday also spoke to Blackman's younger sister, Dejon Hazelwood, who said she remembered the night of his murder.

She said one of her sisters heard the gunshots but thought it was fireworks.

Asked if she knew why anyone would want to hurt her brother, Hazelwood said while she could not think of any reason, she did recall a conversation between Isiah and another sibling.

"He told his other brother, about two days before his murder, that if he should die, he (the other brother) should take care of his children and bury him. I don't know what that was about," she said.

"He didn't go into any details on why he said that."

Hazelwood said she hoped the police would be more proactive in their enquiries. Police from the Homicide Bureau of Investigations Region I are probing the murder and up to press time, no arrest had been made.