He was gunned down in Socastee. His family needs help bringing his body home to Honduras
Leonidas Navarro got a call Sunday afternoon from Gerson Aleman-Velasquez. He wanted to know if the roofing business had work for him on Monday.
They did, but Aleman-Velasquez wouldn’t make it.
Later that night Navarro got another call. Aleman-Velasquez, who worked for Navarro at Weather Guard Roofing had been shot to death outside a Socastee restaurant.
He was 18.
Now Aleman-Velasquez’s former employer and friends are raising money to send his body back to his native Honduras for burial.
The shooting
After a long week of installing roofs, Aleman-Velasquez was winding down at the Brasa Viva restaurant in Socastee.
For the last six months Velasquez had been working with the roofing business and sending money back to his mother in Honduras.
Exactly what happened the night of March 14 is still unclear. Horry County police haven’t released many details about what led up to the shooting but did release a suspect, 19-year-old Josue Rivera.
Police are still looking for Rivera as of Monday afternoon. He was last seen in a white two-door 2002 BMW 330ci with South Carolina license plate SPT-485.
His mother’s only help
Aleman-Velasquez came to the United States when he was 16 to escape the violence in Honduras.
He began working and sent home as much money as he could to his mother, her only source of income.
Without any close relatives in the states, he worked in Louisiana washing cars and installing roofs near New Orleans. He then moved to North Carolina where he found more roofing work and most recently worked around Myrtle Beach. He sent most of his paychecks home to help his mother.
He dreamt of getting her a job in the US and living in a house together again with his siblings.
‘Like family’
Navarro and his wife Heydi had known Aleman-Velasquez for about six months.
When Navarro got the call about the shooting he couldn’t believe it. The two had just been together the day before and Aleman-Vasquez was excited to start working again.
The couple treated him “like family” and had invited him to Thanksgiving dinner last year. They affectionately called him ‘flaco’ the Spanish word for skinny.
On Thursday, the pair organized a Gofundme fundraiser to send Aleman-Vasquez’s body back to Honduras for a burial. The ordeal will cost over $9,000 and any money left will go to his mother, Heydi said.
By Monday afternoon, the fundraiser had raised $11,850, exceeding the initial goal of $11,000.
“It is a blessing,” Heydi said. “I was worried, but I forgot God is our provider.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2021 at 2:25 PM.
