The Guyanese suspect wanted in connection with the killing of another US-based Guyanese man in Richmond Hill, New York last month is believed to have fled back here or to Miami.
The Times-Ledger newspaper reported yesterday that New York police are searching for the man suspected of killing 20-year-old Keith Frank last month in a flash of violence outside a South Richmond Hill party. Frank was the father of an 8-month-old girl. The newspaper reported that police were looking for a man named Troy Thomas in connection with the shooting, according to Frank’s mother, Carol Kyte, who saw a wanted poster in the lobby of the 106th Precinct.
Frank, who moved to Queens from Guyana when he was 12, died exactly two months before his 21st birthday after he was shot once in the torso around 4.45 am on December 11, according to the NYPD. The Times-Ledger reported that Frank was attending a birthday party near 132nd Street and 109th Avenue and ran into some other men with whom he had an ongoing beef, according to his mother. “You wouldn’t believe how stupid it is. It’s just about dancing and girls,” Kyte told the newspaper in an interview in her home. “Everybody said this is a senseless killing.”
Kyte told the Times-Ledger that she only knows that a group of other Guyanese men were at odds with one of Frank’s friends over sophomoric quibbles like break-dancing or the attention of girls in the neighbourhood. “They think they are so macho,” Kyte said, shaking her head.
Frank’s life in Queens began at MS 8 in Jamaica. He then attended Franklin K Lane High School for a time, but eventually transferred to Queens High School of Teaching, Liberal Arts and Sciences in Glen Oaks. He worked a series of jobs after graduating, and at the time of his death was picking up and dropping off laundry from nursing homes all over the state, according to the Times-Ledger.
Frank was buried in Maple Grove Cemetery days after the murder. The Times-Ledger reported that questions still remain about the December night. Frank was shot about a mile from Jamaica Hospital, a 3-mile trip. But when the ambulance arrived he was taken instead to New York Hospital Queens, about 6 miles away.
Kyte has also been hearing rumours that Thomas, who is wanted in connection with the killings but has not been formally charged with a crime, has fled to Miami or all the way back to Guyana. “I just hope and pray they get this guy,” she told the Times-Ledger. “I don’t know what would possess a human being to do this to another human being.”
Frank left behind an older brother and two younger sisters, which made Christmas — one less person at the dinner table, unused Monopoly pieces — that much harder for the family. “It’s not the same anymore,” Kyte said, adding that Frank’s 10-year-old sister had nearly shut down in the wake of her brother’s death. “She’s not the same anymore.”
