By Janet Silvera, Gleaner WriterWESTERN BUREAU:
CLAIRE FORBES heard what sounded like a car backfiring outside her gate. Not even in her wildest dreams could she have imagined that the noise would have been coming from the gun that snuffed out the life of her youngest child, Anthony Forrester.
At about 12:30 pm on Sunday afternoon, the 26-year-old Forrester who was preparing to go to his nephew's funeral, was shot by a gunman in the community of Seaview, Flanker.
Miss Forbes said her son had just arrived from St. Ann, where he resided with his fiancee and one-year-old son.
"We spoke and he told me he loved me."
CAR WOULD NOT START
Shortly after that he went outside to drive away, but his Toyota Camry would not start.
Ms. Forbes was inside her house when a woman ran to her and said: 'Claire, Claire, dem kill Tony.
"Mi said no, nothing like that."
Weeping uncontrollably, she recounted the events that followed.
"When I went out there, he was laying on his back, the blood coming out of his nose and his forehead," she said.
"Mi nice lickle baby, mi nice lickle baby. Sometime when mi sick, him lift mi up, him rub mi down, and him say mi mother anytime mi reach out, a going to put you inna better home than here," she cried.
This was the second time in less than a year that Anthony Forrester was shot in the inner-city community.
LIME TREE LANE
In April 2003, he was pounced upon and shot twice by two gunmen, while he visited a friend in an area called Lime Tree Lane, a few blocks from the house he spent most his life in.
After he recovered from his injuries, his family said he made a decision to leave the area for greener and safer pastures.
"Him left di area and seh him nah take no revenge," said Forrester's brother, Michael Dennis.
Mr. Dennis, who was still trying to come to terms with his brother's murder when The Gleaner visited, described his brother's death as extremely strange.
He said his brother met a Canadian woman and was living a clean family life.
COVETOUSNESS AND GRUDGE
"Him neva involve inna no gang war; I believe is covetousness and grudge."
Mr. Forrester was engaged to be married later this year to Stacy Alasmar.
He is the second person to have died in the community of Seaview since the start of the year. A 19-year-old was also killed there last month.
