Distraught Mother Recalls Homicide Victim’s Last Supper

On Thursday, Gabriel “Junior” Henry, a resident of Barre Denis, and his brother arrived home at around six in the evening. His mother prepared their dinner, and they sat outside the family home to eat. However, it would be Junior’s last supper.

At about 9:15 pm, shots shattered the night’s silence, and Junior, 22, lay dead in the living room a short distance from the balcony where he was believed to be having his meal.

“After I gave them their food, I told them to make sure to wash their plates and I went to lay down on my bed,” Veronica Poleon, the deceased’s mother, told St. Lucia Times on Friday.

“I woke up a little later. I checked my phone, and I saw it was a little after nine. I said to myself, ‘Let me go and lock the door,'” the grieving mother told us. “I sat up on the bed a for a while and then I heard pow, pow, pow and I said , ‘Bon dieu what happen there?'” she recalled.

Veronica tried to compose herself before leaving her room, only to discover her son lying in the living room near the doorway.

“I saw his body just there, his eyes wide open and his brother came to try to pick him up I said ‘What are you doing? Put him down, he die already,'” she related.

Veronica believes that Junior was initially shot in the verandah and attempted to escape further injury by entering the house.  She pointed to a hole in the wall where one of the bullets struck.

As reality started to sink in that night, she began screaming but was still able to muster the courage to ask a neighbor to call the police and the ambulance. Junior was pronounced dead at the OKEU hospital.

Veronica described Junior as a hard worker employed by a construction company at the time of his passing. She is perplexed as to the reason behind her son’s killing.

However, Veronica told St. Lucia Times that she had spent a year away from home due to surgery, and when she returned last October, there was an issue between her son and two young men in the area.

According to the mother, she noticed blood and mud on her son’s clothing one morning back then. “He said he was in a fight the night before and he was attacked by two boys and was cut,” she recounted.

Junior, she says, informed her that he had a knife and retaliated, wounding one of his assailants, who had to seek medical attention. The mother said a few days later, she warned her son about “going down the road” by his father in light of what happened. “But he did not listen.”

She told St. Lucia Times that the following day, Junior came home with two spent bullet shells, alleging that he had been fired upon. “I ask him to make a report but he said if he go and make a report the fellas would come back after him,” the mother stated. She said she does not know who her son’s alleged assailants were.

Still, Veronica is at a loss as to why anyone would take a life in the way Junior met his demise and for what reason. She says she is tired of all the senseless killings, especially with the lives of young men being taken away, never imagining that one day it would be her own son.

Police are investigating the island’s first homicide for 2025 and have urged anyone with information to contact the Criminal Investigations Department at 456-3770.

The public may also contact the Crime Hotline at 555 or use the Crime Hotline App for anonymous reporting.