Sugar Ray Thomas
Several cases were cleared from the court system in St. Ann either through trial in the St. Ann Circuit Court or at the Parish Court level, in 2016. Cases were also cleared by way of the accused persons offering guilty pleas to their charges in 2016. Over in St. Mary several cases were also disposed of as well through the Parish Courts or at the Circuit Court. Interestingly, several cases that involved murders on the North Coast also had trials at the Home Circuit Court in Kingston.
Five of the cases removed from the courts that involved cases across the North Coast include:
GAY LOVER CONVICTED OF MURDER
It was the mother of all court cases that went to trial in the Michaelmas session of the St Ann Circuit Court.
It involved a man murdering his male ex-lover. There was a third male involved – a younger man who came into the relationship and the house shared by the two male lovers.
Before the verdict on the final day of the St Ann Circuit Court, the court heard about homosexuality, HIV/AIDS, jealousy and hurt as well as graphic violence.
The case involved Howard Ricketts, a security guard at the York Castle High School, who was convicted of murdering his ex-lover, Burnett Thomas, who was also a watchman at the school at the time of his death.
The headless body of Thomas was found partially burnt at a house in the community of Lincoln, near Brown’s Town, St Ann where he had lived with Ricketts. The body was found on Sunday, March 25, 2012 at about 8:30 a.m. after residents reportedly saw smoke coming from a back room in the house and went to investigate.
Thomas’ decomposing head was found on March 29, 2012, about two miles from the Lincoln community in a yard, in a community known as Cockpit.
Howard Ricketts was charged on April 2, 2012 with the murder of Burnett Thomas. In his caution statement he implicated Neville Garnett Lewis, who was convicted May of 2014 for his part in the murder. He was the new party in the relationship between Thomas and Ricketts.
The prosecution’s case relied heavily on answers Ricketts had given to nearly 100 questions by police at the time of his arrest. Medical evidence also indicated that, contrary to the claim by the defense, Thomas was alive at the time he was stabbed by Ricketts.
The jurors in mid-November returned a six to one verdict of guilty that convicted Howard Ricketts of murder.
Ricketts’ sentencing hearing was transferred to the Home Circuit Court in Kingston and was to be held on Friday, December 9.
However, The Times has learnt Ricketts was not taken to court on the day of his sentencing and the matter was rescheduled for him to be sentenced.
Life imprisonment for Portland cop found guilty of ex-lover’s murder
One of the North Coast’s cases that was cleared from the court list had its trial being held at the Home Circuit Court in Kingston.
It involved a Portland cop killing his ex-lover.
Constable Lincoln McCoy, who shot dead his lover and attempted suicide in 2013, was sentenced to life imprisonment by Justice Lloyd Hibbert on Friday, May 6, last year.
McCoy will be eligible for parole after serving 25 years.
The Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM) secured its first murder conviction when a seven member jury found McCoy, guilty of the murder of 21-year-old cashier Jessica King, of Mill Bank District in Portland. The two were in a relationship that went sour.
McCoy was assigned to the Buff Bay Criminal Investigation Branch (CIB) office at the time of the incident.
Reports are that on August 14, 2013, Cons. McCoy shot and killed Ms. King and then made an unsuccessful attempt to kill himself, at the Errol Flynn Marina in Port Antonio.
The trial of McCoy began on April 4, 2016. At the trial, evidence was led that Cons McCoy shot King in the forehead and neck from almost point blank range and that McCoy then used his service pistol to shoot himself twice.
LIFE FOR GUILTY MEN IN $60,000 MURDER
Another case that was resolved in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston was that of a husband, who had ordered the murder of his wife.
The 65-year-old St Ann businessman, who had agreed to pay two teenagers $60,000 to kill his wife, was on Friday, April 29, 2016 sentenced to life imprisonment in the Home Circuit Court.
One of the co-accused, who was 15-years-old at the time of the murder, was earlier also sentenced to life imprisonment.
Bertram Clarke, 65, gas distributor and his co-accused, 24-year-old Arthur Robinson were the men who were found guilty of murder. A 12-member jury delivered the verdict on March 15, 2016.
Clarke will serve 25 years before he’s eligible for parole, while Robinson will be released after 21 years.
On the night of October 26, 2007, 74-year-old Floris Clarke was found with her head bashed in and her throat slashed, at the home she shared with her husband Bertram, in Watt Town, St Ann.
Bertram Clarke, who was 56 at the time of the incident, was eighteen years his wife’s junior.
Police had described it as a case in which Mr Clarke ordered the murder of his wife and arranged to pay the then schoolboys, aged 14 and 15, $60,000 to carry out the act. They said that Mr Clarke had become angry with his wife who had recently returned from England to live with him.
On Friday evening, October 26, 2007, the act was allegedly carried out by the two teenage boys. On the instruction of Mr Clarke, they broke into the Clarkes’ house in the small district of Chewmagna, Watt Town where they stabbed and slashed Mrs Clarke’s throat with a knife. Mr Clarke was not at home at the time of the act.
Mrs Clarke was left for dead at the house. However, when Mr Clarke called police and said he had come home to find his wife dead, police found she had not yet died and took her first to St Ann’s Bay Hospital from where she was transferred to Kingston Public Hospital.
By the following day (Saturday, October 27, 2007), police took Mr Clarke into custody. Mrs Clarke died on Sunday and within days a link was established to the teens.
The trial commenced on November 9, 2015 before Justice Gloria Smith in the Home Circuit in Kingston.
The crown, led evidence from 17 witnesses that Clarke’s husband, Bertram Clarke conspired with two schoolboys to kill his wife.
One of these boys, Arthur Robinson, who was also from the community of Watt Town, was Bertram Clarke’s co-accused in the case. The second schoolboy, Emmanuel Newland, had previously pleaded guilty in July 2011 to the murder and is serving a prison sentence of 15 years. He was also called by the prosecution to give evidence at the trial.
SUSPENDED SENTENCE FOR WOMAN WHO KILLED BABY
The case of a mentally-ill St Mary woman, who chopped her baby, was also removed from the court list last year before the courts.
The woman, who chopped her son to death in 2013, was given a three-year suspended sentence on Thursday, April 28, 2016 in the Home Circuit Court.
Forty-two-year-old Michelle Stewart, a vendor of Fort George, Annotto Bay, St Mary was the woman charged with the death of her baby, 11-month-old Lyndon Mattison.
A supervision order was also attached to Stewart’s sentence by Justice Carol Lawrence-Beswick to ensure that she has regular psychiatric evaluation and treatment. The suspended sentence means that Stewart will avoid prison time, but if she commits an offence within the three years, she will be taken into custody to serve her sentence.
On Thursday morning, January 10, 2013 at about 6:20, Lynval Mattison, who was Stewart’s baby-father, left his son in the care of Stewart and went to work. That same morning, Stewart walked into the Annotto Bay police station and confessed that she had killed her baby.
Police went to the house and saw the baby on the bed with a large wound to the neck and a machete lay beside him.
A post-mortem report revealed that the baby had a chop wound over the left side of the neck and shoulder with severing of the underlying muscles, vessels and airway. There was also chop wounds to the back of the left arm and forearm.
Stewart was taken into custody and following several psychiatric evaluations, she was diagnosed with a disorder of the mind known as schizophrenia.
When her murder case was to continue before the St Mary Circuit Court on Tuesday, February 23 of this year, just a day prior to its start, she pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of infanticide.
Stewart was later offered bail by Justice Carol Lawrence-Beswick on the charge of infanticide and sentencing was moved to the Home Circuit Court.
25 YEARS FOR BEATING BABY TO DEATH
A St Mary man, who had beaten his baby grandniece to death, was sentenced to 25-years imprisonment at hard labour by high court judge Justice Marcia Dunbar-Green on Thursday, July 21, 2016.
However, because the accused man, 51-year-old Clive Barrett, had spent time in custody prior to his sentencing, he has received a discount of two years and eight months.
Barrett pleaded guilty to manslaughter after he was charged for murder in relation to beating his 22-month-old grandniece, Eshauna Gardner to death on Wednesday, October 30, 2013.
Barrett had pleaded guilty to manslaughter when he appeared before the opening of the circuit court on Monday, July 4, 2016.
A social enquiry report that was read in court captured the views of persons from the Dean Pen community where Barrett resided. Persons described him as an honest and hardworking man. However, several of them said that they feared Barrett, because of his previous convictions on charges of assault and murder.
It was while into a year and four months on parole that he beat his grand niece to death.
There was also a statement from Eshauna’s mother, who was asking for leniency as she said that Barrett had loved and cared for the child.
There was also a statement that was revealed in court from a neighbour who heard the child being beaten and Barrett saying that he was not finished with the child after he beat her.
A post-mortem report also revealed that Eshauna had multiple abrasions to the chest and the back. It was also confirmed that the toddler had died as a result of severe trauma to the head and skull.
Justice Marcia Dunbar-Green handed down the sentence of 25-years imprisonment.
