Contract killer gets life in prison for 2013 murder
Manchester higgler Shevano Richards who, while under probe for the 2015 slaying of two brothers in that parish, was found to be the trigger man in the 2013 contract killing of British citizen Arthwell Alphonso Joseph, was on Friday sentenced to life behind bars for the 2013 homicide.
The 48-year-old Joseph, who had retired to Jamaica from Britain with his wife, was shot during a home invasion in September 2013 by Richards and another assailant who is reportedly still on the run.
Supreme Court Judge Justice Grace Henry McKenzie, in sentencing Richards to life behind bars with eligibility for parole after 34 years and seven months on Friday said the murder had all the hallmarks of a contract killing and was “akin”, in her view, to capital murder.
Capital murder includes murder for hire, murder in the course of certain felonies (burglary, robbery, arson, sexual offences), murder of a member of a specified class of persons acting in the course of their duties (security forces, correctional officer, judicial officer, a person carrying out constabulary functions, witness, juror, or justice of the peace), and multiple murders.
Capital punishment remains on the books in Jamaica but may only apply in certain aggravated murder convictions. There have been no executions since 1988, however.
Justice Henry McKenzie, in assessing the case, said she had identified as aggravating factors the nature and seriousness of the offence, the devastating impact on the family, the fact that the murder was committed during a home invasion, and was carried out with a firearm and an accomplice. Further aggravating factors, she said, were the forced entry, the fact that the deceased did not know Richards, the evidence pointing to it being a contract killing, premeditation, and the fact that Richards spat on Joseph after he shot and killed him.
“Murder by any stretch of the imagination is a very serious offence… a life has been lost, a life has been cut short. The impact has been devastating. The family of Mr Joseph will never be able to enjoy his company ever again,” she said, noting that murder crimes have escalated in Mandeville in recent times and permeated the island.
“This case involves a home invasion and, from all indications, the home was forcibly entered. Your home is your sanctuary, it should be a safe space…he was not invited but forced his way there and committed this heinous crime. This deceased did nothing [to deserve this], there is no proof of any history between them. This crime has all the hallmarks of a contract killing and, in my view, could have been capital murder,” the judge declared, adding that this “egregious” feature took the case to “another level”.
Stating that “all these aggravating factors far outweigh the mitigating factors”, the judge, from a starting point of 32 years given the “aggravating factors”, added 15 years, taking the total to 47 years from which she deducted four years for the mitigating factors and eight years and five months for time already served by Richards, leaving 34 years and seven months.
“So the sentence of the court is that the accused serve life imprisonment and that the accused is not eligible for parole until having served 34 years and seven months behind bars,” she stated.
Joseph’s wife, who gave evidence during the trial, was effusive in her praises for the judge and the prosecution.
“I rate the judge; every aspect of what happened that night she covered, she detailed, and she fairly mentioned the two favourable social statements. I never gave up. I was determined to make that wrong right,” she told the Jamaica Observer after the sentencing.
The Crown, in outlining the allegations, said fortuitously during the investigations into the shooting deaths of two brothers — Oshane Levy, 21 and 27-year-old Anthony Bailey — off Highway Drive, Greenvale, in May 2015, an acquaintance, upon learning that Richards had been taken into custody for those murders, told the police about his boast that he had been the one who had killed Joseph. Richards reportedly bragged that he got money “to kill a man in Manchester”, and even took the individual to the house where Joseph and his wife had lived.
The now 33-year-old Richards, who spent his formative years in St Catherine before relocating to Clarendon and then Manchester, was convicted for the slaying in May this year, after a jury trial.
Richards is scheduled to also stand trial for the killing of the two brothers at a later date, the Observer was told.
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