Judge: No sympathy for people who cause their own demise

For killing her former lover and then burying him in sewage hole, Stefforn Williams was sentenced to three years imprisonment last Friday at the High Court.{{more}}

Williams, who was initially charged with the murder of Anthony “Brassy” Nero, pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter last month.

Wearing reading glasses, Williams 54, clad in a white blouse, pink skirt, and a pair of black shoes, sported a broad smile after learning her fate.

As she exited the courtroom escorted by a police officer, Williams took off her glasses and continued smiling, as she was greeted by a few of her family members.

On September 13, 2011, Nero’s decomposing body was found in a sewage hole in the yard of the house where Williams lives.

In an exclusive interview with SEARCHLIGHT, in which Williams gave a detailed account of what had taken place, she said she returned home on that day and realized her door had been tampered with. While undressing, she felt someone hold onto her hair, after which she struck the person with a piece of steel.

It was the deceased who had held onto her.

She further told Searchlight that after striking him again with the steel, she put his body in a sheet and dragged him outside the house where she buried him. Williams then mixed concrete and poured it over the sewage tank, into which she had thrown Nero.

She told SEARCHLIGHT that Nero was hiding in the house when he came from behind and struck her in her face.

“He say ‘Yo have de (her private part) dey and yo ain’t war gimme…’”

In passing sentence, Bruce-Lyle, as he has stated in the past, said: “Deceased persons who cause their own deaths will have no sympathy in this court.

“Nobody can say what happen except yourself. So we have to go on your evidence — which is your caution statement — in which you admitted causing the death in the circumstances in which you were attacked…

“Men who go beating women and think they can get away scotch free and end up dying in the process, so be it,” Bruce-Lyle said.

The judge said the deceased had no business at the accused home because there was a restraining order against him from the Magistrate’s Court.

System failed deceased

“The system failed the deceased. I am going to say so, including the police. When they do good I praise them, but when they do wrong I will always say so,” Bruce-Lyle said.

Williams said Nero had a history of attacking her and one time, even chased her with a cutlass.

“Imagine police telling her when she went to make a report ‘The man is so much in love with you. Give him wife (sex) and everything will be okay’… What kind of nonsense is that! And now when she’s attacked and defends herself, she finds herself before the court,” Bruce-Lyle added.

“What do you expect from a woman who enters her home alone, who has already been stalked and harassed by the deceased? We have evidence of her making numerous complaints. In defending herself, the deceased died. Who’s fault is it?” he questioned.

Bruce-Lyle then threw out a question to the women in the courtroom.

“I am asking all the women in the courtroom, if you are a single woman, you enter your home, somebody attacks you from behind, what would you do? Wouldn’t you defend yourself? The law is there to protect you too. It’s not only to protect one side.”

The judge said when he passes sentence, he was aware that he would hear “all kinds of nonsense outside there (in the public)”

“I don’t care. That’s not my business. My business is to apply the law fairly and justly.”

He added that the only aggravating circumstance in the case is the fact that Williams concealed the deceased’s body and lied about it.

Williams told her counsel, Patina Knights, that she did it out of panic and fear.

“That was wrong! Based on all that was happening, you should have gone to the police or call them and say ‘A man is inside my house’ … I am convinced what happened, happened inside the house — where he wasn’t supposed to be.

“Considering that you have already spent 14 months in jail, I think the appropriate sentence, taking all the circumstances into consideration, three years imprisonment and time spent on remand will be taken into consideration,” Bruce-Lyle ruled.

“If you attack a woman or a man and in the process you lose your life, Crappo smoke your pipe. I have no sympathy for that kind of nonsense … Men who think they can go around harassing women and the men who are in positions to assist, giving foolish advice. What are women, chattels?” (KW)