KEINON MEMORIAL

‘He Was Such A Nice Little Boy’

Tears flowed and emotions ran high at the McIntosh Memorial Primary School in Williamsfield, Manchester, yesterday as the death of 12-year-old Keinon Shaw was too much for his teachers and schoolmates to bear.

Keinon was murdered yesterday morning along with his mother, Woman Corporal Bevon Hutchinson-Anderson and father Rohan Shaw, by retired police Sergeant Osbourne Whitton, who also took his own life.

Principal Sheron Anderson, who got the news approximately 4 a.m., said the shock was overwhelming. She said she had to force herself to think about the anguish her students would go through so she took the necessary steps to have grief counsellors in place before they arrived for school.

Board chairman and chaplain, the Reverend Caswell Burton, as well as Dr Grace Kelly and a team from the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors of Education, Constable Jaimy McIntosh, Anika Barlow, teachers and parents spent the day in counselling sessions with the children.

special poems

The children were separated in different groups, according to their grief assessment. Those closer to Keinon and affected the most were asked to write poems expressing their emotions. They all had fond memories of him.

His friend Michale wrote:

You never said you’re leaving

You never said goodbye

You were gone before we knew it

And only God knew why

A million times we needed you

A million times we cried

If love alone could have saved you

You never would have died

It is very sad to lose you

But you didn’t go alone

For a part of me went with you

The day God took you home

“He was so quiet, well-mannered and well-behaved. He was such a nice, pleasant child,” said his grade six teacher Donnette Simpson, who said she was weak at the knees when she first heard the news and needed a word of prayer for strength.

She added, “He and his mother had a great relationship. She was always here checking up on his progress and was such a caring mother. Whenever she came by and he saw her, his face would always light up.”

Principal Anderson remembered with a smile an exchange with Keinon, whose heart was set on attending Manchester High School in September.

“After the GSAT, I asked him how he did, and he said, ‘Miss, I love social studies and I know I did good, but I don’t love maths, so I not sure about it’.”

After a pause, the smile disappeared as she said, almost in tears, “He was such a nice little boy. How God? Why him couldn’t leave him?”

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