The father of Shaki Crockwell laid a cross at the spot where his son died on Friday — on what would have been the murder victim's 26th birthday.

And Danny Crockwell revealed that he may eventually hire an overseas private investigator if the killer who shot Shaki dead on the Railway Trail in Devonshire on August 24 is not found by Police.

"I'm not no person that's going to lay down because they took something real important from me," he told The Royal Gazette. "I ain't laying down like anybody else. Me and Shaki were like skin and bone."

Mr. Crockwell said Friday was a tough day for him and his family. They chose to mark it by visiting the place where the 25-year-old national footballer was gunned down and holding a party in Middletown last night to celebrate his life.

A notice in last Thursday's edition of this newspaper featured a photograph of Shaki and his son Qwezi Savory, who was just eight when his father was killed. It read: "Remembering you on your birthday Daddy."

The painful anniversary came in the same week that Police divers spent three days trawling a pond at the Ocean View Golf Course close to the murder scene near Loyal Hill. The frogmen are understood to have been looking for the missing weapon used to shoot Shaki in the neck.

Mr. Crockwell said he had seen broadcast media reports about the search and expected to be updated by Police on the inquiry at a meeting at Prospect today. "I'm just trying to deal with today because today is my son's birthday," he said. "He would have been 26 and that's no age."

He said he was keen to hear how the murder investigation — which seniors officers have said has been hampered by a wall of silence — was progressing but was keeping an open mind about where to go next for help to find the killer.

"I've got a lot of things in mind," he said, adding that he may approach a private detective abroad. "I'm going to ask overseas. I can't tell you when that might be. I'm just going to wait to deal with what they are going to tell me. If it's not what I want to hear then I can walk down that path."

Father-of-two Shaki, who played for the Boulevard, the Bermuda Hogges and the national side, was wearing a protective vest when he was killed.

A Police spokesman said he could not comment on the search at Ocean View.