Stefan Burgess’ mother Andrea reflects on loss, justice and her sadness for gunman’s family

By Owain Johnston-Barnes

The mother of murder victim Stefan Burgess said the conviction of Julian Washington for the shooting would help her family move on, but she must also forgive him.

Speaking to The Royal Gazette yesterday, Andrea Burgess said: “I just think it’s easier to love people than hate them.

“The guy’s a lost soul. He’s in a dark world. He’s sinned, but I’ve sinned. I’ve never murdered anybody or hurt anybody intentionally, but it’s all sin. Sin is sin.

“For me to be forgiven for what I’ve done, I have to forgive him.”

Ms Burgess described her son as a well-loved family man who was always eager to lend a helping hand, but put his young daughter above everything else.

“That was his number one thing,” she said. “Other people would get jealous of him, they would say that sometimes they would think they were bad fathers when Stefan was around.

“He never left home without saying ‘I love you’ and a kiss, whether he came in and out four times a day or just once.

“He was very in touch with other people’s feelings.

“He had just finished the first half of his pilot licence course for boats. He was due to start the second half two weeks after he was shot, but he never got to do that.

“He had a lot of goals, a lot of things he wanted to do. We wanted to move to England with his girlfriend and his daughter to continue their education. He had plans for his life.”

Those plans were cut short in January 9, 2012. On that evening, Mr Burgess was celebrating a friend’s birthday at a party on The Glebe Road when a man in dark clothing opened fire.

Mr Burgess was shot twice in the chest, and was pronounced dead on arrival at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

Another man, Devano Bremer, was also shot and injured during the attack.

More than two years after the shooting, Ms Burgess said her family has been working hard to move forward, but they are still faced with the reminders of their loss.

“His daughter recently had a really bad day. Friday was her sports day. He was always there for that, and the following day was his birthday,” she said. “That was a hard day for her. They had to call [Mr Burgess’ sister] Ebonie that evening to come and comfort her. Everyone was crying.

“She really misses her daddy. She wanted the man who killed her daddy to be prosecuted.

“She really wanted that, and she was so happy when it happened. That’s something that’s really important in her healing.”

Ms Burgess said she was elated and relieved when the verdict was read on Tuesday, finding Washington guilty of premeditated murder of her son, along with the attempted murder of Mr Bremer, using a firearm to commit the crime of premeditated murder and handling ammunition.

“My first thought was ‘Thank God’,” she said. “I said thank you Lord because it’s been a long time. It’s been a struggle for his daughter, it’s been a struggle for his family and his girlfriend.

“It’s been a struggle with his friends. Everybody was upset about Stef. He was like a mentor to a lot of people. He helped a lot of people. He was always there for people.

“He’s never going to come back, but it’s good to know that [Washington] is not going to do this to anyone else. A lot of lives have been lost on this Island.

“If we can stop one person from taking another’s life, then so be it. It’s just sad that this had to be done, this killing for no reason. It was for nothing.

“He never had anything against Stefan. He said that in court, so then what did he do this for? To shoot a gun?

“He had his own motives, I suppose, but there was no reason to kill anyone. It’s just sad. Stef had a good life going.”

While she said the verdict offered her family a measure of relief, she said it was touched with sadness because it meant heartbreak for Washington’s family.

“There’s another family involved in this as well. [Washington’s] mother, his father, his brothers and sisters,” she said. “His family is now hurting for him, and that saddens me.

“It really saddens me that his mother has to go through that and his brothers and sisters.

“No matter what, the community has got to stick together. Most people thought I should have hated the parents, but they’re parents.

“I can’t hate them. It’s not their fault that their son did what he did. There are too many cases where the parents hate the other parents and everybody’s fighting, everybody’s arguing. That needs to stop. It’s not going to help anything.”