SPANISH Town residents Omar Stewart and Andre Ennis were last Friday sentenced to life imprisonment in the Home Circuit Court for the 2005 slaying of their former friend, Andre Baker.

Ennis, 23, cried at the reading of his social enquiry report, which described him as a lover of babies but a young man who was misled by the company he kept. But some residents charged that Ennis was a murderer and commented, "a jus now dem ketch him", the court was told.

Stewart in the meanwhile, who threw a hissy fit while weeping from the dock and blaming Ennis for the murder upon their conviction a week earlier, was described by St John's Road residents as a troublemaker in the community. Only two of the 25 people interviewed by a probation officer had anything positive to say about the 30-year-old father of six, the court was told.

Ennis was in 2003 convicted of unlawful wounding, the court was told. Stewart was convicted on two counts of unlawful wounding in 1998, and in 2004 was convicted on one count of making a false declaration.

Jurors heard evidence in the murder trial that on July 27, 2005, about 6:00 pm, Baker was in the company of a group of persons walking along Westmore Drive, in Spanish Town, when both men approached the group. After a brief conversation, Stewart, otherwise called 'China Man', pulled a gun and shot Baker in the back of the head while Ennis chased after the eyewitness who escaped.
Baker's body was later found on premises along Westmore Drive.

Stewart was arrested later that night. Gunpowder residue, at an elevated level, was found on his hands. Ennis, a labourer, was arrested two days later. Both men said in unsworn statements from the dock that they were not at the scene of the shooting.

Both men are to serve 20 years each behind bars before being considered for parole, Justice Carol Beswick ordered.

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