By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

KEVON Taylor, a 22-year-old father of two, had been counting down the days to celebrate his daughter’s first birthday. Instead, his family is now planning his funeral after he was killed in a tragic motorcycle crash in Exuma in the early hours of Monday morning.

“He was so excited,” said his mother, Alicia Coakley, speaking from New Providence yesterday. “All he talked about was the party. He even bought my plane ticket so I could be there.”

Their last conversation was on Saturday evening. “He said, ‘Mommy, I paid for you to come over to the party.’ I told him, ‘Yeah, Kevon,’” she recalled, her voice trembling.

Just after 1am on Monday, police say Taylor collided with another vehicle in the Farmer’s Hill area. He was found on the ground with visible injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.

Only hours earlier, he had attended a Junkanoo rush-out before heading out with a friend.

His long-time partner, Branique Forbes, who lives in New Providence, said she knew something was wrong when she saw the friend’s WhatsApp status pleading for an ambulance. Repeated calls went unanswered.

When she tracked Taylor’s phone, it was near the local clinic. Moments later, his parents confirmed her worst fear.

“I just want my best friend back,” she said through tears.

Ms Forbes said their relationship was close and loving. “No regrets,” she said. “But I do wish he made it home.” Her last message to him was a plea for caution: “I said, ‘Well, go home safely babe.’ He was on the bike, and I didn’t want him texting while riding. He said, ‘Okay.’”

Their son is still too young to understand what’s happened, but she is determined that his father will not be forgotten.

Ms Coakley, grieving her eldest child, said he was “the life of the party,” a devoted son who never gave her trouble. “I had him at 18,” she said.

“Anybody could ask and I would say, ‘Kevon gone be the one to take care of me in my old days.’ To know him was to love him.”

After moving to Exuma post-pandemic for work, Kevon had recently hinted at returning to Nassau. “Mommy,” he told her, “if I get a good job in August paying what I make now, I coming back home to live.”

He dreamed of owning a home and raising his children in a stable environment.

“Everybody loved him,” his mother said. “My baby. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say.”

Taylor’s death brings the national traffic fatality count to 38 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.