Albert Boyce was among the thousands who attended last Saturday night’s Hennessy Artistry show, which featured American R&B singer Joe, as well as Jamaicans Sizzla, Konshens, Taurus Riley and Etana as headliners.
Albert Boyce died at the QEH this morning.
Unfortunately, the 20-year-old, who reportedly left the Kensington Oval before the show had finished to make his way home, never made it back home alive.
Today, his emotionally-shattered mother Glenda Boyce was still searching for answers as to why her son is now the island’s latest shooting victim.
Police are also investigating the unnatural death of Boyce of Reed Street, Bridgetown, who died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) earlier today after he was shot twice in the abdomen sometime around 4 a.m. on Sunday, whilst at Lower President Kennedy Drive, St Michael.
Tears did not flow from her eyes, but as she softly pounded on her chest with one hand and rubbed her head with the next, it was evident that 54-year-old mother was not only hurting but struggling to put the pieces of the puzzle surrounding her son’s death together.
“I don’t know why somebody would shoot him in the belly while he on his way home to he mother house,” she quietly declared, during an interview with Barbados TODAY at the home she shared with her deceased son, who she last saw moments before he died.
As other family members sat quietly and listened as she told her sad story, the mourning mother said this was one of the saddest days of her life.
“I would like to know why somebody kill my child. I would like police to find the person who do it as soon as possible,” she said.
“I want them to find the person that did it to him. He just turn 20 years old on November 9th and as a mother it hurts my feelings to see that he gone just like that,” she said.
Boyce described the former Grantley Adams Memorial School student as a quiet individual who stayed out of trouble’s way. However, she said he had many friends who also cared for him and suggested that nobody “but God” could understand the pain she felt when someone knocked on her door and informed her that her son who had left home in good spirits to attend the event, was rushed to the hospital for emergency treatment.
“It hurt me and I just begin to cry because I couldn’t believe somebody leave a show half of an hour before it finish because he wasn’t feeling well and when he walking coming home all of a sudden somebody just come and shoot him,” she said, adding, “I don’t feel good about that as a mother because he was coming home.”
Clearly nursing a wounded heart, and with head bent, Boyce said she loved her last born of four children unconditionally and did her best to raise him, giving him whatever she could have afforded to, just to make him happy.
When contacted for comment today on Boyce’s death, organizer of the Hennessy show Freddie Hill sought to distance his event from the death which has put a damper on an otherwise incident-free show.
“It has nothing to do with Artistry. It was a clean show and no incidents were reported at the event,” Hill said.
Before the curtain came down on the show, at Kensington Oval, Minister of Culture Stephen Lashley had praised the organizers for putting on a quality show.
“The Hennessy Artistry production has continued to excite Barbadians and visitors alike. I think that the crowd so far tonight shows that the brand is really taking off in Barbados. It is a calendar part of the cultural agenda in Barbados Persons have actually demonstrated that this is a good show, and I think it is going to be fantastic going forward,” Lashley said.
anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb