DRUG LURED VICTIM TO STREETS

Slain man grew up 'carefree spirit,' but couldn't keep away from
Avenue of Nations for long, his cousin says

Andrew Livingstone O'Brien's addiction to crack invariably brought him
back to the Avenue of Nations.

The 42-year-old man flirted with sobriety, but the threat of prison
and the support of his family were never quite enough to keep him
clean. The lure of the drug persisted until just before dawn Tuesday,
when he was shot to death near his 107th Avenue haunt.

Kary McLeod considered his cousin more of a brother.

Born on the outskirts of Kingston, Jamaica, they came to Canada a year
apart when they were both still children.

As they grew up in north Edmonton, their lives went different ways.
While McLeod was settled, O'Brien had a "carefree spirit" that led him
to take risks.

"He always wanted to push things to the limit," McLeod says. "When his
parents moved to Toronto, he did not want to go. He stayed with us for
a while. But the rules at our house ... he did not like them, so he
decided to go out on his own."

O'Brien was attracted to dangerous crowds and eventually started using
crack.

He was not homeless. He had his own bedroom at McLeod's place and
would stay for up to two weeks at a time.

"Andrew would come to our house a mess," McLeod says. But in a matter
of days, after a bath and a meal, he'd turn around.

During this time at his cousin's, O'Brien was a different
person.

"When he was not high, he was the most pleasant person to be with. I
loved being with him," McLeod says.

"We spent a long time talking about his lifestyle. Sometimes even he
would cry about it. He would not refer to it as crack; he said
cocaine. I said: 'No, cocaine is for people with money. You are a
crack addict.' "

O'Brien would laugh at that.

"It seems like it was a calling," McLeod says. "He was just magnetized
to that lifestyle. And I would ask him: 'Why would you want to leave a
home where you have everything to go back on the street and do nothing?' "

His cousin responded: "I don't know, man. I can't help
it."

McLeod is sure his cousin wanted help.

"But he didn't know how to get it. And I think the crack was more
powerful than his desire to get the help."

After a week or two at McLeod's, O'Brien was back on 107th Avenue
without fail.

"I hated the fact that I would spend a week with him and then he would
leave," McLeod says. "107th Avenue and 108th Street is infested with
drug addicts whom I no longer pass judgment on."

O'Brien was shot in the chest along a block of walk-up apartments on
108th Street.

He died en route to hospital.

Police have yet to lay charges in the case.

"One of the things I remember is when he tried to change my daughter.
He treated her like a porcelain doll. He was so gentle with her."

McLeod's mind sticks to this image: his cousin's loving way with
kids.

He says his cousin's addiction and life in the open put him in the
company of dealers and sex-trade workers, which meant he wasn't always
safe.

"We did not approve of his lifestyle and he tried to keep it from us,"
McLeod says.

O'Brien's funeral is Wednesday. Relatives are expected from Toronto,
New York, Atlanta and Jamaica.