NASSAU, BAHAMAS – Management of Church Street Plaza is denying allegations that it removed or discarded the memorial created to honour the five teens killed in last month’s Shirley Street traffic tragedy.
In an exclusive interview with Eyewitness News, management extended condolences to the families but insisted the allegations are untrue. Instead, officials explained that the memorial had been repeatedly disturbed by vagrants in the area.
They said teddy bears, flowers and other items were often moved, sometimes because people were using them to sleep on, while heavy rain would leave memorial items scattered across the parking lot.
Management said members of its maintenance team routinely returned the items to their proper place after discovering them displaced.
The memorial was erected following the June 28 crash that claimed the lives of 17-year-old Diamond Stubbs, 18-year-old Betrica Brown, and 19-year-olds Evalena “Lilly” Johnson and Stania Webb. Days later, 19-year-old Keno Gordan succumbed to his injuries, bringing the death toll to five.
Officials said the memorial was located on private property and that no one sought permission to place it there. However, they said they understood why the site had become a place of remembrance.
They also revealed that, following the crash, they spoke with someone they believed was a relative of one of the victims, advising that safety barriers would be installed once the damaged tree was removed.
Management is also pushing back against claims that memorial items were thrown away.
A spokesperson told Eyewitness News, “What’s being portrayed about our position of throwing items in the garbage or removing them — we have nothing to do with that.”
Despite the installation of the grey barriers, officials said families, friends and members of the public are still welcome to honour the five young victims at the site. They are encouraging any new memorial to be built above ground rather than placed directly on the pavement.
As for the original memorial items, management said it does not know where they are, maintaining that they were still at the site after the barriers were installed.
For the families, however, the loss of those items has opened a new wound. Some relatives said they had planned to take parts of the memorial and place them at the teens’ graves following their funerals.
