Urgent Appeal After Ealing Rock Musician Drowns In Brazil

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Family face huge bill to bring his body home

An appeal has been launched to help the family of an Ealing guitarist who drowned trying to save a bandmate in Brazil.

Timothy Kennelly, 18, from West Ealing, was on a tour of the country with his heavy metal band, After Death.  Mr Kennelly, a bass guitarist, had recently joined the band after leaving Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Holland Park. He has a twin brother.

Tragedy struck as he went swimming in the resort town of Aracaju. The teenager died after going to the aid of his band mate Leon Villalba, 21.

The body of Mr Villalba washed up on shore and Timothy, who was due to study Physics at York University, was found by coastguards 15miles from the resort the next day.

Now his family are having to find around £10,000 to repatriate his body after being told neither he - nor the band had any travel insurance.

His family have said Timothy would be remembered as being a very gentle, generous, loving, popular young man with a positive outlook on life.

Death Toll records have launched an appeal to raise money to bring Timothy and Mr Villalba, of Islington back home. On their website they say:

''We are asking every friend of theirs, friends of ours, colleagues, labels, bands, musicians, everyone to help us to raise some money to aid the families.

We are launching an urgent appeal to all fans and friends, we will pass all the profits from the After Death CD "Eulogy" onto the families.

If everyone buys a copy, we can offer assistance to their families at this difficult time and in some small way ensure that their music and memory will live on.''

January 26th, 2010