SPANISH Town residents Dean Reid and Wayne Morris were last week sentenced to life imprisonment for the 2000 gun murder of a detective sergeant in the old capital.

The two were ordered to spend 35 years behind bars before becoming eligible for parole, when they appeared in the Home Circuit Court Friday. The men were convicted in late January.

Reid, otherwise called Sampoochie, and Morris, who is better known as Rapist, were in 2001 charged with murder for gunning down Detective Sergeant Maurice Shirley at a bar in Stratmore Gardens, Spanish Town on April 14, 2000.

According to the bartender's statement, which was read into evidence under Section 31 (d) of the Evidence Amendment Act, the two, along with another man, came into the bar and ordered drinks before pointing guns on Shirley and herself.

The statement said that while Shirley had his hands in the air, the men opened fire and he fell to the ground. The men took Shirley's service revolver and robbed the bar of $9,000 before leaving.

The men were held at a house in Trelawny on May 2 the following year. The murder weapon, a .38 revolver, and Shirley's 9mm service pistol were also found in the same house.

After their arrest, the men allegedly gave caution statements admitting to the killing. They, however, testified that the police had fabricated the "admission". The accused also said that the police had lied about finding the guns in the house where they were nabbed. They said that the cops had actually found the guns in nearby bushes.

Reid and Morris, who both hail from March Pen Road in Spanish Town, St Catherine, are to also stand trial for the murders of five people - Edgar Halstead and his wife Sylvia; Evelyn Wee-Tom and daughter Fredericka Wee-Tom; and Cassandra Campbell - along March Pen Road, Spanish Town. The murders took place several days after Shirley was murdered.

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