By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS


Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net


A GRIEVING mother says she was blindsided by the collapse of her eight-year-old son’s murder trial, describing the shock of learning through social media that the accused had been acquitted as a blow so painful it “feel like the day I watched my child bleed out.”

Kendera Woodside, who says her life fell apart after her son Eugene Woodside Jr’s death, said no one in authority bothered to contact her to say the trial had begun – or that it had dramatically collapsed after prosecutors gave no opening statement and called no witnesses.

She received no phone call, no notice...not even a rumour that the trial had begun having been told for years that it would not happen before 2026.
Instead, the trial unfolded and concluded this week without her knowledge, reigniting trauma that never abated. 

Her son was doing homework in their small wooden Chippingham home in 2017 when a stray bullet tore through the wall and into his chest. Pregnant at the time, Ms Woodside held him as he bled to death.


The killing became a national flashpoint, sparking outrage across the country. 

The case against the men once accused of his murder, Lloyd Minnis and Perry Pickering, collapsed this week after prosecutors gave no opening statement and called no witnesses.

Cordell Fraizer, director of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, said yesterday the issue was complex, explaining that the Crown sought to present an anonymous witness but the Supreme Court refused to allow it.


Ms Woodside said she only learned the trial had ended when she woke yesterday morning to messages and social media posts.


“I turned weak when all these people, first thing my eye open up, the news coming to me in this kind of way,” she said.
“What happened to the system? Why the system want to fail Eugene? He only was eight years old. Like, come on. Do you have children?


“First thing this morning, all of my family, friends, clients, everybody, just sending me the clippings of what was posted on social media even though I was told I would have been informed about anything pertaining to the case.


“I feel personally in this matter like the system failed my son because from what I understand, the next morning after he was killed, when my family and I went to CDU, the evidence was there and should have been in the government’s possession.


“I’m shocked to even know a whole case happened with my child’s death and I wasn't present, so it makes me look like I didn't care, or I just don't want to be involved.


“Today feel like the day I watched my child bleed out. Today feels like the day when I walk in PMH, with my face covered in blood.”


She said people on the outside may have moved on, but she continues to live with the loss. Grief, she said, fractured her family.


“That broke my whole family up,” she said, adding that her daughter, who witnessed the shooting, struggled for years.


“My daughter had to get help; rebelling, going through this because this was her brother and this happened right next to her.”


Her marriage also dissolved under the weight of grief.

“My husband and me break up because I couldn't even take seeing my husband’s face, seeing my child’s face on him,” she said.


“This ruined my family; these people ruined my family and get to walk free.”
She recalled her final moments with her son.

“The last words I told my son before he shut his eye on me was, mummy love you. Your family loves you.”


She gave birth to her daughter two months after the murder on her own birthday. That birthday is now two weeks away, but carries no celebration.
“

Ain't no birthday and ain't no Christmas because ain't nothing to be happy about this month at all,” she said.


She said she intends to fight the matter however she can.
“

God be with these people, from the judge to the prosecutor, to the nine-member jury, to the prosecutors who never call me, to the Attorney General’s Office who never reached out.”


“I have plenty pain and suffering from this kind of verdict.”