RUSHANE Barnett, the Trelawny man who brutally murdered his cousin Kimesha Wright and her four children at their Cocoa Piece, Chapelton, Clarendon residence in June of 2022, is appealing his sentences on the basis that they were excessive.
Barnett was sentenced by Supreme Court judge Justice Leighton Pusey in October of that year to five concurrent life sentences but is, in effect, only serving serve 61 years and eight months in prison before being eligible for parole.
Barnett, who was 22 years old at the time of the offences and would not be eligible for parole before his 85th birthday, wants his time behind bars reduced.
According to Barnett, his cousin who operated a shop at the premises where she lived had disrespected him in the days before the murders. He claimed that a customer had come to the premises and he served the costumer but his cousin was upset and told him he was never to serve her customers and grabbed the cash from his hand and splashed water into his face. He said he was offended from that instant. A subsequent interaction with his cousin, he said, led to the stabbings.
Barnett, who was the one to act as a babysitter for his cousin’s children on multiple occasions, was subsequently convicted that July of five counts of murder in relation to the killings.
At the sentencing hearing in September, then Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Paula Llewellyn, whose office had initially served notice that the Crown would seek the death penalty but later withdrew because Barnett pleaded guilty, had argued that he should get life in prison and should serve no less than 60 years before being eligible for parole.
Justice Pusey, in his summation before handing down the sentences, had expressed “eternal hope” that Barnett’s name would be discarded to the dustbin of history and in the same breath urged that the names of Barnett’s victims be immortalised.
Justice Pusey, who said he “struggled for adjectives” to describe the “direct viciousness” of Barnett, declared, “What we need to remember in this matter are persons who lost their lives, and I have deliberately been mentioning their names continuously. I have also been deliberate in not mentioning the name of the accused man because it is my eternal hope that we will forget his name, although it seems as if his name has [gone] wide and abroad.
In handing down the sentences the judge — who said he deliberately avoided mentioning the details of the injuries of the five deceased, given the presence of their family members — said, “This is a crime for which adjectives and descriptions were insufficient and which shocked and horrified a nation, even in this country which has unfortunately gotten too used to murder.”
Justice Pusey, ahead of directly addressing Barnett, said he “found instructive” a note by one of the officials that Barnett — who appeared to be superficially charming, deceitful, lacking in empathy and remorse at the time of the evaluation — had expressed the desire to be given oral medication, placed in a single cell, and to remain in custody for a year before being released on the current charge.
The judge, who said that the crimes fell under “the most serious category” recognised in law, told the court that in arriving at the sentence he took note of the report of a forensic psychiatrist who, after assessing Barnett, said he had no major mental illness but that he “displayed features which suggest that he has an antisocial personality disorder”.
According to the doctor, he found that Barnett understood the nature of the offence but was not acting under any abnormality of mind when he committed the offence. He said although Barnett indicated that he heard voices, his examination of him did not uncover any signs of delusion in his history. He further said Barnett “appeared eager to deflect responsibility for the alleged offence to his cousin’s mother by claiming that she caused Obeah to be on him”.
Barnett did not benefit from a discount in his sentence because of his guilty plea, given the circumstances of the particular case, Justice Pusey said.
While declaring that the matter “approached the category of one that could attract the death penalty”, Justice Pusey said, “We really have no precedence in our annals and I daresay, I hope we have none after today.”
The judge said the case of Jeffery Perry — who was convicted in 2008 for the 2005 murders of three children in Killancholly, St Mary, and sentenced to life imprisonment on all counts — was the case which came closest, as well as the case of Mark Henry, who was in that same October sentenced to life for the murder of three children, one of whom was his own.
From a starting point of 55 years, the judge added two years for each of the five aggravating factors he identified, taking the total to 65 years from which he then deducted three years for the mitigating factors, which included the four months spent in custody by the convicted youngster.
“His sentence would be on each offence for the lives of Kimesha Wright, Kimanda, Shara-lee, and Raphaella Smith, and Kishawn Henry, a life sentence on each count with eligibility for parole after 61 years and eight months. The sentences are to run concurrently,” the judge ordered.
A forensic psychologist who examined Barnett revealed that he had a tendency to be superficial, referring to a habit of being “smooth and slick”. The expert also revealed that Barnett lacked openness, does not accept responsibility, is unreliable, displays adult antisocial behaviour and lacks empathy.
Barnett reportedly admitted to killing the five but said voices in his head told him to do so. He added that he had been hearing voices since he was 18 years old and that witchcraft was being used against him, causing him to do the murders.