Friend says man was on cruise ship

Details emerging about slaying victim

Courtney Wilson was fatally shot Friday.

BROCKTON - The wife and a friend of a man fatally shot on the waterfront just after midnight Friday said the victim had attended a floating reggae and hip-hop party on the Provincetown II, enjoying the cruise with hundreds of other visitors to Boston for this weekend's Caribbean American Festival.

After the party disbanded, 41-year-old Courtney Wilson's body was found in the Seaport District parking lot, not far from the Institute of Contemporary Art. The husband and father of three who sold used cars had been shot several times.

"He was going for a boat ride and never came home," said Hoip "Ali" Swaby, a friend who had known Wilson since they were boys in Jamaica.

Police have come up with few leads in the case, even though there were more than 800 people who paid $35 each to attend the booze cruise, dubbed "Outrageous in Red." State troopers working a traffic detail heard gunshots shortly after 12:30 a.m. Friday and found Wilson. He was taken to Boston Medical Center and pronounced dead.

Of the hundreds of people who crowded the Seaport parking lot at the end of the party, few if any witnesses have come forward to aid the police investigation. Boston police called a press conference Friday afternoon to implore people with information to come forward, but by yesterday they had received only "some limited additional information."

"Are we still asking people to come forward? Absolutely," said Boston police spokesman James Kenneally.

The Caribbean American Festival draws hundreds of thousands of people from as far as Canada and Trinidad each year. House parties and other celebrations, like the reggae cruise, although not officially connected with the event, have become part of the extended party. Yet the event has also been marred by violence including four stabbings in one hour last year.

Michael Glasfeld, the owner of the Providence II cruise ship, said yesterday he will "steer clear" of hosting similar events during the week of the festival in the future. He said police told him they are reviewing video camera surveillance tapes used to monitor the parking lot where the shooting is thought to have occurred.

"I don't need to get involved in it," he said of the festival. "It sounds like I've just been lucky [nothing similar has happened] in the past."

Police have not confirmed that the victim of Friday's shooting was Wilson, but on Fraiday and again yesterday family and friends said he was the victim. Many visited his Brockton apartment to comfort his widow, Jackie Palmer-Wilson, who sat outside the house in a screened-in tent with a cooler of beer at her side.

Looking dazed and exhausted, Palmer-Wilson allowed Swaby to describe her husband's life.

Swaby said Wilson moved to Boston 15 years ago from Jamaica, arriving in Massachusetts the day after Christmas. Swaby said Wilson left Jamaica for the same reasons he did; to escape violence and poverty. He left behind his parents and five siblings, although he continued to support them by buying used cars at auction in the United States and selling them. He also supported two teenage daughters in Jamaica, Swaby said.

Wilson married Palmer-Wilson 11 years ago and the couple had a son, 5-year-old C.J. He was staying with relatives in Boston yesterday. Palmer-Wilson recalled that her husband and son were "inseparable" on Saturday mornings, when Wilson would take the boy on errands and to the barber shop. She said he would probably have spent yesterday grilling meat. Unable to bear telling her son about his father's death, she asked her sister to give him the news.

"He didn't understand, he's too young," she said, burying her face in her hands.

Swaby said, "He's still waiting for [his father] to come home."