‘Kadeem, mammy sorry’

KIMETTE Johnson, 39, held it together through most of the funeral yesterday for her murdered son aspiring deejay, Kadeem “DJ Kiddo” Johnson, 18, at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Port of Spain.

All composure left when his casket was opened for public viewing. “Kadeem boy, mammy sorry boy, oh God, I sorry I wasn’t there. They take my son! They take my whole heart,” she screamed.

Johnson was shot dead last week outside Building 4A Oropune Gardens, Piarco. Earlier during the funeral, mourners were urged to forgive those who had killed the teen and make their lives right with God.

Friends, relatives and well-wishers were also called on by church officials to support the grieving family. Johnson was afforded two eulogies.

When his god-sister, Allissa Belgrave, 18, was called on to deliver the scheduled eulogy, she was not yet at church. Johnson’s great aunt, Michelle Julien, stepped in and remembered her nephew as “always smiling.”

She said she had never heard one negative word spoken about him from anyone. A few minutes later, Belgrave arrived and accompanied by Johnson’s mother, she recalled the last message she received from her god-brother, moments before he was shot.

“He asked me ‘wey you dey’, because he had his new car and probably wanted to carry me for a drive. That’s how he was, always sharing, always thinking about others. He tried, he tried to stay away from this corrupt system we live in, he stayed inside, but we still lost him to it,” she said.

Johnson’s girlfriend Shania Brewster, 18, had to be led out of the church, clutching her left side and complaining of pain. Her mother, Seleta Phillip-Brewster, said Shania and Kadeem both graduated last year from Success Laventille Secondary and attended their graduation ball as a couple.

Johnson, who survived a fire in Trou Macaque in 2011, was the cousin of ten-month-old Destiny Lara, Denessya Campbell, two, and uncle of 15-year-old Akeem Young, who all died in that blaze. Their neighbour, Lisa Charles, 46, also perished when she and Young jumped from the five-storey building.