By KARL E CUPID Tobago Bureau Friday, January 4 2008

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GRIEVING SISTER: Joan Applewhite, manages a sad smile during the funeral service for her murdered brother Winston Applewhite yesterday at the Scarboro...

HUNDREDS of mourners flooded the Scarborough Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) Church yesterday to bid a final farewell to Moriah murder victim Winston Applewhite. “The great God of the Universe does not sleep,” Pastor Martin Cunningham warned.

“And all we have to do is just put our trust and faith in Him,” he told mourners. “I know that Winston Applewhite is a great loss to Tobago, because he was a very generous, loving and helpful person.”

And this was the running thread in the outpouring of tributes to the 61-year-old murder victim. “Generous, unpretentious” were just some of the words used to describe Applewhite, who was fondly referred to as “Apples.” But Jesse Hurdle, of the McKay Hill SDA community in Scarborough, perhaps put the best handle on the tributes when he described Apples as an “extremist”.

“He was extreme in his generosity, in his helpfulness, in his giving, in his gentleness. Apples was a man of the people; he would go all the way night and day to make sure that everything was all right for someone else,” Hurdle said.

He noted that some time ago Applewhite had related to him that thieves had been entering his home and he advised him to install burglar proofing. But in typical manner, he said Applewhite had replied: “I ain’t living in no jail, let the chips fall where they may”.

Applewhite’s body was discovered on the floor of his bedroom at Craig Hall, Moriah, on the night of December 22.

“There are questions that we can’t answer. The whole of Tobago is asking the question ‘why?’ But you, God, have answered us, by giving Your Son to die on the cross for us all,” stated Pastor Clyde Thomas, president of the SDA Tobago Mission.

He noted that while Applewhite’s murder was “a bitter pill to swallow,” God would provide comfort to the bereaved family. “While we all have to leave this world, we don’t know how we would do so,” he reminded the congregation. The body was later interred at the Scarborough Public Cemetery. On Wednesday, 19-year-old Keron Marcelle of Moriah, appeared in court charged with Applewhite’s murder.