The Tribune

By EARYEL BOWLEG

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

A MAN died in hospital shortly after he was shot outside an apartment in the Wilson Track area Tuesday night, police said. 

The murder has left family and loved ones of 31-year-old Valdez McKinney from Green Castle, Eleuthera, in shock. However, a relative conceded to The Tribune that McKinney had spent time in prison for assault. He was also reportedly stabbed during an incident at a bar last year. 

According to a police report, shortly before 10pm Tuesday, a man was sitting at the back of a home on Wilson Track, when he was approached by a gunman, who shot him before running away.

Police said paramedics took him to hospital where he later later died from his injuries.

His fiancée, Aniska Cash, told The Tribune he was killed at the apartment where they lived with her family. The two were set to marry this May.

“I feel like I broken,” his fiancée said. “Me and him just been together last night (Tuesday) talking and all that before he get shoot. I see him from the back door and I come from the front and see him drop on the floor and he start getting weak. He was shot multiple times. He was a nice person. He was a loving person. Anything I want – I use to get from him. He did love his little girl.”

Currently, his four-year-old daughter is now with her mother, who is not Ms Cash.

Present the night of the shooting, Ms Cash’s mother, who did not want to be named, recalled his last moments and trying to help him as he fought for his life.

She said: “Last night (Tuesday), he went in the back and I hear the shots so I just scream, I say, ‘You get shot, you get shot’ and when I said that ...he came from the back there, and when look he run this way and he drop on the floor and it was like he was in plenty pain, so the neighbour came from over there and she say put something there so he could put his head on.

“He was out of it... Every time they tell him lay down and he lay down and he get back up because of the pain was so severe.”

She, with McKinney’s fiancée and cousin, went to the hospital to check on the father-of-one, but were not allowed in until the police called them into the room, only to be informed by the doctor that nothing could be done to save him. 

Although he lived with his fiancée’s family for only two to three months, members of Ms Cash’s family were deeply affected by their future in-law’s death.

Meanwhile, speaking from Eleuthera, his sister, Natasha Sands, told The Tribune that the family is “not well at all” and his passing has hit the Green Castle community. 

“It’s a shock to everyone…Coming from a peaceful place, yeah it’s unbelievable,” his sister said by telephone. “A complete tragedy, Never expected it. You see these things on the news.” 

According to Ms Sands, this was not her brother’s first time being the target of violence as she recounted when he was stabbed about three times at a bar last year. Yet, her brother was unfazed by the attack.

“He wasn’t fearful at all,” she said. “He’s like ‘I’m all right, you know not that bad. He stabbed me on my shoulder.’”

The last time the two spoke was on his birthday on February 9, when she wished him a happy birthday. She said he was in good spirits.

Ms Sands said the family was planning to come to Nassau, but would  bury her brother in Eleuthera.

The killing is the tenth for the year, according to this newspaper’s records. 

Anyone with information about this incident is asked to call police at 502-9991 or Crime Stoppers at 328-TIPS.