Businessman gets life for shooting death of teen
Steven Grant, a 31 year-old businessman, was Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole before 20 years for the shooting death of 17 year-old Kymani Bailey three years ago.
The sentence was handed down by Supreme Court judge Marva McIntosh, four days after Grant was convicted in the Home Circuit court.
The Crown’s case against Grant was that on a night in April 1999, the teenager was celebrating his birthday at a nightclub in Kingston. During the night, Grant shot the teen 13 times.
Grant’s defence was that he went outside the club to urinate. While doing so, the teenager came up behind him with a gun and ordered him not to move. He responded by discharging his licensed firearm several times.
A post-mortem of Bailey’s body revealed that the teenager received 13 shots, two to the front of his body and 11 to the back.
Two witnesses turned up to give character evidence on Grant’s behalf Tuesday and his lawyer, Glen Cruickshank, urged the court to be lenient and to take Grant’s contrition into consideration.
The judge, however, said she had to balance the character evidence against the fact that Bailey died at the age of 17 and had been shot 13 times.