By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

A MAN who spent his life navigating instability and working two jobs to stay ahead was killed in a hit-and-run on Saturday, adding another blow to a family already hit by repeated tragedy this year.

Twenty-nine-year-old Devon Butler, a father of one, had celebrated his birthday only weeks earlier. He was walking east on Robinson Road sometime around 2am when he was struck by a dark-coloured Acura – and then run over by a second vehicle. Police said the first driver stopped, but the second did not.

“It sounds to me like he get killed,” his sister Latoya Smith said in an emotional interview, adding that relatives seeking answers plan to meet police today.

She said her brother had pushed through hardship to build a stable life, working two jobs — at Cash N Go and Cacique — to care for his six-year-old son. He wanted to become a lawyer.

“It wasn’t easy for him but he was trying his best to balance to make sure his lil boy good and stuff like that,” she said.

Butler was reportedly heading home from work when he was killed. A friend and roommate grew worried when he never returned. A Superwash employee later told the family he had stopped there minutes earlier to make a phone call for a ride before walking off.

His sister did not learn about the accident until hours later. She said she ignored an early-morning call around 4am, thinking it was a random number, until repeated calls — including one from their sister — delivered the news.

“I said ‘man, y'all lying, y’all better stop talking fool, not my brother, Devon because I couldn't believe it,” she said. “They say ‘yeah, he get knocked down’ so I say, so ‘anybody gone or whatever and they say my little sister but by the time she got to the scene, he was gone already.”

The family has been plunged into crisis after a succession of blows. Their mother was injured in a hit-and-run in February, leaving her with a debilitating leg injury. Months later, their father died from illness. Ms Smith said they were still struggling to cope with the September loss of the man who raised them.

“We had a very rough upbringing,” she said, “but my daddy who died on dialysis, he take care of us from since we were small and we were babies. We was even in the homes together, the emergency children’s hostel and my daddy came and took us out the home and we went straight to Bimini.”

Ms Smith believes the loss echoed a spiritual warning. Days earlier, she and her brother texted about their mother’s condition after her February hit-and-run, which left her wheelchair-bound.

“We was talking,” she said, “and I say, ‘y’all go check in on mummy. my spirit just dropping on her and let’s go and don’t wait for something to happen.”

Although their mother did not raise them, she said Butler still tried to maintain a relationship with her.

“Even though she wasn’t there for him, that was kinda hurting him but he was still trying and he was positive about it, doing the best he could do,” she said.

She said the siblings spoke every day. His final message to her was an invitation to church on Sunday. She had promised to go and was waiting for his reply on Friday, noticing only one tick — unaware it would be his last text to her.

“I never met a soul like my brother before. He was a sweet, loving brother. He always cared and kissed me up, telling me how much he loved me,” she said, calling him the life of the party. “He loved all of his sisters. That was my second child.”

She said this Christmas will be especially painful, as the family always spent the holiday together and celebrated their mother’s birthday.