By LEANDRA ROLLE AND JADE RUSSELL

Tribune Staff Reporters

HAROLD “KJ” Burrows Jr seemed poised to turn a corner in his life. At 21, he had just landed a job at KFC and was set to start his first shift Monday, a step he believed would help him better support his young family.

Instead, he was brutally gunned down outside his home the day before he was due to begin work.

He never got to wear the black-and-white pants his mother had planned to buy him for the job.

In a heart-wrenching interview with The Tribune, his mother, Cheena Riley, recounted their final conversations — full of hope and pride — now reduced to devastating memories.

She had taken him Friday to get a health certificate and attend a job interview. While she waited outside, he messaged her: “Mummy, I pass the test and other people ain’t passed. I passed the test.”

Burrows Jr was elated, already talking about his first shift. On Sunday, they had planned to shop for his uniform pants. 

“I was calling him all (Sunday) morning and he wouldn’t answer because I does get up and call him every morning and I say he mussy still sleeping. So when he got up, he said ‘mummy what you saying, I was sleeping’ because Mari had him all day,” she said.

“I asked him his pant size and I was going to carry him this morning to get his black and white pants.”

Burrows Jr had spent Sunday playing dominoes with friends outside his Taylor Drive home. The mood was light; the family had just celebrated his older brother’s wedding the day before.

But around 7pm, the night turned deadly.

Two men on a motorbike pulled up and opened fire. Burrows tried to flee but was chased and shot dead behind the house.

His girlfriend and the mother of his two-year-old son, Leniejah Farrington, recalled the moment bullets shattered their peace.

“Harold ran on the side of the house, the right side of the house. This individual run after him and just was shooting him,” she said.

“He’s lying on the floor, he only got shot in the head. You could see the pieces of his brain.”

“I was shouting, screaming his name. I hold his hand to check his pulse to see if he was breathing but he was done dead.”

Only minutes earlier, she had ushered their toddler inside, a move that may have saved the boy’s life.

Now, Ms Farrington is left grappling with how to explain to her son that “Daddy” isn’t coming back. Since the shooting, the child has been calling out for his father, unaware he is gone forever.

“I just want closure. They know what they do. I don’t know what they do it for, but there’s a next fatherless child who have to grow up without a father,” she said.

The family says they do not know why Burrows Jr was targeted. Ms Riley suspects the attack may have been a mistaken identity or simply that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Burrows Jr had faced previous legal trouble, once charged in an armed robbery case that his family insists was a case of mistaken identity. Ms Riley said her son had since been on the right path.

“He has been doing good since then,” she said.

His girlfriend echoed that sentiment, describing him as a kind, hardworking young man who always put his family first.

His murder brought the country’s homicide count to 41 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.