Verdict in child killing to come in New Year

Jeremiah Barnes

(CNS): The man accused of shooting dead a 4-year-old child in 2010 will have to wait until January to learn his fate. Following the closure of the murder trial last week, the judge presiding over the case without a jury said he expected to deliver his written verdict in the case on 19 January. Devon Anglin (29) from West Bay is charged with killing Jeremiah Barnes on 15 February 2010 as he sat in his family’s car at Hell Gas Station in a gang-related shooting gone wrong.

With a packed docket in the courts, Justice Charles Quin set a date for delivery of his verdict in the New Year due to the amount of evidence in the case and because, unlike a jury, a judge must outline his reasons for either acquitting or convicting a defendant.

Anglin was acquitted by a judge in a previous trial in 2011, which was successfully appealed by the crown and led to the second hearing of the murder charge.

The case hangs directly on the evidence of Jeremiah’s mother, Dorlisa Barnes, and father, Andy Barnes, who was the intended victim of the shooter, according to the prosecution. Both say the gunman was Devon Anglin.

The defence claims that the parents had erroneously assumed that the gunman was Devon Anglin because of the bad blood between the men but that there were many other people who wanted Barnes dead.

Anglin is already serving a life term in HMP Northward for killing Barnes’ best friend Carlos Webster in a Nightclub shooting in 2009.

A life sentence still means jail until death in Cayman as amendments to the relevant legislation made in the parliament last year have not yet come into force. However, the conditional release bill is expected to be implemented shortly, after which all prisoners serving ‘life’ will receive a tariff to define that life term, at the end of which they could become eligible for parole.