OUR HEARTS ARE SHATTERED

In these exclusive interviews, Tony and Lynn Forbes speak out for the first time since the murder of their beloved son AKA, and share how they plan to keep his legacy alive

- NOKUTHULA ZWANE-EJIKE & KESHIA AFRICA

SHE was on a road trip in Mpumalanga with her sister when she received the news that would tear her heart in two: her beloved son was gone.

Kiernan Forbes, or AKA as he was known around the world, had been shot dead outside a restaurant in Durban while he was in the city for a gig, and Lynn Forbes’ world collapsed.

She’d returned from a dinner party with her sister, Trudy, and brother-in-law, Trevor, at around 10 that night when her youngest son, Steffan (30), called Trevor.

Lynn knew it was terrible news when Trevor sat next to her and put his arms around her. “I thought it was my mom. At first, he couldn’t speak, then he said, ‘No, it’s Kiernan’,” she recalls.

The news knocked the wind out of her. She felt her legs give out and no one could console her as she sobbed hysterically on the floor.

“I didn’t want anybody to touch me until Steffan came after an hour and hugged me and said he would take care of everything,” Lynn says.

Her ex-husband, Tony Forbes, was sound asleep at his home in Cape Town when he heard a vigorous knock on the door. He’d nodded off on the couch with his daughter, Sarah (8), and had missed several calls from family members.

“Lynn’s niece came to my gate around midnight with a phone in her hand and said her dad wanted to tell me something,” he recalls. “He told me the news and I remember collapsing.”