By CECILY ASSON Sunday, August 30 2009

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Lived at Jarvis Street, Vistabella....

A young television cameraman in his dying breath identified his killer by name to police. Akeel Mathison, 23, of Jarvis Street, San Fernando was stabbed to death while being robbed of his Pearl Blackberry cellphone on Friday evening. Mathison had just left an internet café on Coffee Street, San Fernando, when he was attacked.

According to a police report, he received a single stab wound to his right side chest by a man whom he knew. Just before Mathison was attacked, his assailant demanded that he hand over his cellphone. Mathison refused, a struggle ensued and Mathison was stabbed once in the chest. Mathison was able to walk back up the step to the café and tell customers the name of his attacker. With his dying breath, Mathison tried to understand what had happened. “How he (naming his attacker) could do that for a phone,” he asked.

Mathison was employed as a cameraman for the past three years with the religious television station Acts Channel 9, of Circular Road San Fernando. He also operated a small graphic arts shop at his home, Sunday Newsday was told. Mathison was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Yesterday at his home, a tent was being erected for his wake but relatives were too distraught to speak. The television station manager Rodney Sammy-Guilarte told Newsday that Mathison did not deserve to die that way. He said, “He was such a quiet person, an unassuming young man who was very dedicated to his job. Akeel was just at the point in his life when he knew just what he wanted – he decided on a career in television and was focussed on pursuing it as a full time career. “No one could say bad things about him – he was not into anything.”

He went on, “How could they kill him for a phone – he had just gotten it and it might not have even been a new one.”

He said Mathison was responsible for all the camera footage done for community sporting events and was often seen on the station network. “His death is a great loss to all of us,” said Sammy-Guilarte.

Homicide detectives are continuing investigations.