By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Chief Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

HOURS before she learned her son was dead in an apparent traffic accident, Hazel White urged him to “go home.”

Edwin “EJ” Mark, 23, was later found unresponsive near a utility pole in Ramsey, Exuma, on Saturday with his motorcycle nearby. His helmet and one of his shoes were discovered some distance from his body. His death came just weeks after he bought the motorcycle as a gift for his 23rd birthday in August.

“I said ‘EJ, you riding your bike, it’s dark, go home.’ So he say, ‘mummy, I ain’t drinking you know. It’s just one Guinness,’” Ms White recalled. He promised to call once he made it back from the local Fish Fry, but that call never came.

Police say there is no evidence to support the family’s belief that he may have been struck by another vehicle. Chief Superintendent Kenrid Neely, officer in charge of Exuma, said there was no damage to the bike, no road markings, and footage from a nearby business showed Mark leaving at 3.07am in the rain. He said investigators will await the autopsy report to determine his cause of death.

Still, Ms White struggles with unanswered questions, insisting her son was a cautious driver. “Why,” she asked, “his helmet is all the way down the road, far away from him, and one of his shoes on the next part? If he slide, he would have slide with his shoes on.”

“I lie down in that spot and my chest was so heavy,” she said. “My heart was hurting me and I said Lord, if somebody hurt him, they should have no peace in their life but if it’s your will, I thank you.”

The mother-of-six said she and her son shared a close bond, speaking daily and ending each conversation by saying they loved one another.

On the night he died, she fell asleep waiting for his promised call. The next morning, preparing for a funeral, she sent him another message. Instead, she received the news that would shatter her life: her “baby is dead.” She said he was a quiet, humble young man with a promising future.

“Everybody on the island, from the airport go to Georgetown, everybody I spoke with, not one day a problem out of him,” she said. “All the old people over there, grieving.”

Mark, a landscaper at Sandals, had embraced Exuma life over the past two years after moving from New Providence. He loved the beach and his work, and had recently bought property in Eleuthera. “His plan was to come home in June to go to Eleuthera to clear down his property and put down his foundation,” Ms White said.

This latest accident brings the country’s traffic fatalities to 51 for the year, according to The Tribune’s records.