LAFAYETTE, La. (KLFY) A heartbroken woman is speaking out about her husband’s tragic murder.
He was fatally shot at a Lafayette carwash at the corner of Eraste Landry Road and Cajundome Boulevard just days ago on Friday, October 8.
His killer is still out there.
Police have identified the victim as 30-year-old Keyon Alex.
His wife says Keyon’s killer did more than take his life. She says he robbed two little boys of their father.
Keyon’s wife says he was her best friend and her soulmate. Friday afternoon, however, she had to see his body lying on the ground at the carwash after he’d been killed.
“I was like, ‘I need to see. I just need to see if that was my husband,’ and [the detective] was just trying to stop me from seeing. But I saw, and that right there just tore me to pieces,” Marneka Alex said.
“It’s like my whole life just shattered, and he wasn’t even there to pick up the pieces.”
Marneka says she and her husband, Keyon, spent every second together. Their two boys, two and five years old, were Keyon’s whole world.
“Ky, what’s in the clouds?” Marneka asked their son.
“Heaven,” he responded.
“Who’s up there?” Marneka asked him.
“Daddy,” he told his mom.
“It’s like the only thing that held me together were those two little boys that we have because everything in the world just stopped when I got that phone call that Keyon was dead,” Marneka said.
She says Keyon loved everyone, had a heart of gold, and shined a light wherever he went. She can’t understand why anyone would take his life.
“If they are watching, I just need y’all to know. Y’all didn’t hurt Keyon. Y’all hurt my kids. That’s the hardest part is that my kids have to grow up without their daddy, and that’s all my kids have ever known is their daddy. To see y’all take that from my kids, that’s the most hurtful thing ever. Y’all took a good daddy from two little boys that will never understand why,” Marneka said, holding back tears.
Marneka says they may never understand why, but says when they look up, they think of him. She says he’s their star in the sky.
“Daddy is a big ole star,” Marneka told her oldest son.
“He’s the sun,” he said.
“I think he’s not fully aware his daddy is never coming back. It’s like, I just have to stay strong for them and make sure they remember their daddy, and I keep his name alive,” Marneka said.
Lafayette police are still searching for the person or people who killed Keyon Alex.