Boy, 15, is stabbed to death near his home
A BOY of 15 has died after being knifed yards from his home.
Keelan Wilson was set upon by youths as he and a friend tinkered with a car, a witness said.
Last night, the teenager’s grandfather paid tribute to him and said their extended family were due to travel to Egypt for a holiday next week.
George Ellitts, 74, said Keelan was a kindhearted boy who once raised hundreds of pounds for Great Ormond Street Hospital after being sponsored to shave his hair off.
The victim lived with his mother, Kelly Ellitts, at the grandfather’s home in Merry Hill, Wolverhampton.
Speaking outside the property, Mr Ellitts said: ‘To me, he was an angel. He’s lived with me all my life … I don’t know any of the people he was with last night.’
Mr Ellitts added: ‘Keelan had one sibling who was 11 months old and had another on the way. He was into cars and bikes.’ He said Miss Ellitts was ‘in a bad way’.
Keelan’s father Gary Wilson, 46, lives in Birmingham and said the teenager had a college place lined up in the city for September, when he was planning to move in with his father.
Tuesday’s murder comes less than a fortnight after 16-year-old Ozell Pemberton was stabbed to death in Sutton Coldfield, 20 miles east of Wolverhampton. A taxi driver who witnessed the stabbing, and who did not want to be named, said he saw Keelan and his friend trying to start a car and offered them a lift.
He said that as the two boys approached the vehicle, a group of about four youths approached the pair, armed with knives. The driver was also attacked and suffered a hand wound. Keelan’s neighbour, 81-yearold Lily Thompson, described him as a ‘lovely lad’ who had ‘never been any trouble’. Chief Superintendent Jayne Meir said: ‘Somebody knows who was responsible and they need to come forward.’
A surge in knife crime has seen at least 37 people stabbed to death in London since the beginning of the year.