MEMORIES FLOOD SITE OF DEATH

A Family Holds A Vigil For Kerry Ducre, 25, Where
He Was Shot And Killed In An Albertsons Parking Lot

EAST MANATEE - Against the rustling of brown paper bags and metal
shopping carts making their way through another Thursday night at the
grocery store, they sang.

More than 100 mourners, candles flickering and fingers interlocked,
peered at a white-lined parking space with traces of blood still
embedded in the asphalt.

"He's got the whole world in his hands," they harmonized, gripping
tightly to a belief that 25-year-old Kerry Ducre had gone to a better
place that afternoon he was shot and killed in the Albertsons lot. Two
other men were wounded in the Oct. 3 shootout that authorities say was
drug-related.

For Teria Robinson, halted visions of a future with her boyfriend of
31/2 years will never cease to haunt her. Ducre proposed to her, she
said, the night before he was killed. He had flown into Bradenton from
West Virginia for her birthday - he had been living up north,
endeavoring to piece his life back together, she said.

"He was getting into a lot of trouble down here, and he wanted to get
away from it," Robinson said. "If it took his death to give other
people a chance who are on the wrong path, maybe some good can come of
all this."

Ducre's family organized the vigil to memorialize Ducre who, at 4:30
p.m. that Friday, was shot to death in the parking lot at 8415
Lockwood Ridge Road during a drug exchange between men in two cars,
according to court records.

Carlos Alonso, 20, and Raymond Malara III, 20, have since been
arrested on charges of murder in connection with the triple shooting
that killed Ducre and injured 20-year-old Jabbarey Bryant and
19-year-old Clayton Dowling, all of Bradenton. Dowling told
authorities that he, Bryant and Ducre arranged to meet Malara so that
Ducre could buy drugs, according to documents filed at the Manatee
County Courthouse.

Alonso is in the Manatee County jail without bail, and Malara is being
held in New York at Riker's Island pending extradition.

Photographs of Ducre lay in the parking space, with bouquets of roses
and cards. Robinson rested her head on the shoulder of Ducre's mother,
Linda.

"All of these tragedies don't happen for no reason," said Frank
Jenkins, assistant pastor at Faith Temple Church of God and Christ. "I
just want to encourage our young people, try something new. Tell
yourself tonight, 'I am somebody.' "

Christina Sherman, still wearing her nursing scrubs from work, said
she grew up with Ducre on 18th Street East. He owned every color of
Converse All-Stars and always had a friendly word to share, she said.

"I'll always remember him with a smile on his face and some Chuck
Taylors on his feet," she said. "He was a real sweet boy."

Sherman's two sons and one daughter gathered around her, oblivious to
the reason so many were congregating Thursday night. She told them it
was a vigil, she said, but couldn't tell them why. She didn't know
where to begin.

"The kind of lifestyle some people live, I guess there are a lot of
things to be expected," Sherman said. "But just about everybody I know
has been getting killed. Every time it happens, you wonder, who is it
going to be next?"

Visitation for Ducre will be at 5 p.m. today at House of God Church,
1107 Sixth St. W., Bradenton. A memorial service will be noon Saturday
at Redeemed Christian Center at the Just For Girls Club, 1011 21st St.
E., Bradenton.