The mother of gun murder victim Raymond Troy (Yankee) Rawlins has spoken of her pain at his loss, and hit out over reports he was a gangland kingpin.

Sharon Coy-Rawlins said negative things that have been said about her son have added to her grief since he was gunned down six weeks ago.

My son had a beautiful personality. I know he wasn’t no angel, but he is not as bad as the media are making him out to be, she said.

Mr. Rawlins, 47, was shot multiple times in the early hours of August 9, just after he entered the Spinning Wheel nightclub in Court Street.

He’d already been subjected to a previous attempt on his life when a man opened fire at him on the same street on December 16, 2009.

A Supreme Court jury trial relating to that incident heard earlier this month from Police gang expert Sergeant Alexander Rollin.

He said Mr. Rawlins was known as original gangster on the streets and used to be associated with the Frontline gang — one of the first crews involved in drugs and violence in Bermuda.

Sgt. Rollin added that he’d often seen Mr. Rawlins, a self confessed former drug user and dealer, in the company of members of the Parkside and Middletown gangs.

However, speaking publicly for the first time since her son’s death, Mrs. COY-RAWLINS said: I would like to set the record straight regarding my son, because there is too many negative things said about him in the newspaper and it is not all true.

My son was not a gangland kingpin and he was not the leader of the Parkside gang. A long time ago he had a group of friends and he named them Frontline. They were not a gang, just good friends, and he called them Frontline Crew.

Him and his friends did not go around robbing, stealing, raping and shooting people. They were just a group of friends that got together and went out to party, to have fun and like girls or women.

Mrs.COY-RAWLINS, from Pembroke, added: He was like a Robin Hood, but he did not steal from the rich, he just gave to anyone that came to him and said ‘lend me’ or ‘give me’ and he gave until he couldn’t give any more.

She called her son Troy, but others called him Yankee because he lived in the United States for a while. Mr. Rawlins ran the C&R Discount Store on Court Street with his father Raymond Burgess, and also lived on that street.

He was well loved by people, you can tell by his funeral, said his mother, estimating that 1,000 people attended the service at the First Church of God on August 13.

She does not understand the reason for her son’s death.I don’t know why anyone would want to kill him. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s not the Bermuda that I know. Bermuda never used to be like this, she said.

Speaking of her grief since his death, she explained: This is just too much for me. I can’t take it. I cry all the time. I’m depressed and feeling like a part of me is gone. It’s like I can’t even function any more. I was an outgoing person and I loved to dance. I can’t dance any more. I’m empty inside. I just want my son back.

Mrs. COY-RAWLINS said she was speaking on behalf of the rest of the family too *— including her son’s father Raymond Burgess, two brothers, two sisters, his 86-year-old grandmother, and his girlfriend of 15 years.

Mr. Rawlins also left five sons and three daughters, some of whom live in the US. I just want him to rest in peace, said Mrs. Rawlins-Coy.

A 31-year-old man has been charged with the premeditated murder of Mr. Rawlins.