Young man jailed for 41 years for unprovoked killing of villager

By Kemarlie Durrant

A young man of Redemption Sharpes has been sentenced to 41 years in jail for the unprovoked killing of a fellow villager, who he gunned down on his birthday.

Kimron “Plantain” Neverson, 27 was on August 4, sentenced at the High Court #2 after he was found guilty of murder.

However, having spent over three years on remand, Neverson will now spend a further 37 years, eight months and 12 days behind bars for the March 15, 2020 murder of Edward “Eddie” Alexis.

According to the facts presented by Justice Rickie Burnett, the deceased, Edward “Eddie” Alexis, and his friend Triston Charles and were at the Redemption Sharpes Playing Field, celebrating Eddie’s birthday and playing bingo sometime after 8 pm.

After some time, Eddie told Charles that he was leaving, and Charles also left and decided to visit a relative.

On his way from the playing field, Charles said he saw Neverson and another person he knew as “Natty”.

As he continued walking, he realised he was struck by a stone. He turned around and assumed that it was one of the men who had struck him.

By that time, he had arrived at his relative’s yard and he began throwing glass bottles at Neverson and Natty in response.

When he saw Neverson taking something from his pants, Charles hid behind a wall.

Eddie was not present when all of this was taking place.

Charles said he later went to ‘lime’ with his cousin.

A little later, Neverson and Natty went to the ‘block’ leading to Trigger Ridge where Neverson complained to two men about the incident. He told them that he was on his way to buy bread when Charles and Eddie threw bottles at him.

He then vowed to go down and ‘shoot up the block’ but, he was stopped from doing so.

Neverson then took out a firearm from a raincoat and slammed it on a bench.

Shortly after this, Eddie, who lived at Trigger Ridge was seen walking up the hill, in the direction of his home, when Neverson indicated that he was going to kill him because he ‘blast thing after him.’

He also gave Natty instructions on where to meet him after. Neverson took a shortcut leading to Eddie’s home and ambushed him before he arrived at the house.

Gunshots were heard shortly after and the deceased was found with two wounds to his head.

Neverson was arrested the next morning and during his electronic interview, he told the police that he knew nothing about the shooting.

His cellphone was analysed by police and a conversation between him and a WhatsApp contact was retrieved. The conversation had a timestamp of after 10 pm on the night of the shooting.

He told the authorities that he was sleeping around this time and that he only had this conversation with the contact at ‘foreday’ morning.

However, portions of the retrieved conversation were put to him during the interview. In the conversation he told the contact about the ‘bottle pelting’ incident, that he “did what he had to do” and he was now “smoking weed pon d f**ker.”

Neverson’s parents, a former employer and members of the community were all in agreement that Neverson had been led astray by ‘bad company’.

In the social inquiry report, his former employer described Neverson as “cool, humble and friendly” and that he was someone who was liked but the influence of friends took hold of him.

His father admitted that he did not play a significant role in his son’s life, however, he allowed him to stay at his apartment for more than one year as a way of keeping him away from bad company. He also warned him about his behaviour and the company he kept.

Neverson’s mother said her son had “no chance of surviving the negative influence of his community as he was groomed into criminal activities at a young age.” She also feared for his safety as he was shot twice in 2018, but she is now relived that he is at a safe place despite being saddened by the circumstances.

In his summary, Justice Burnett said the parents of the deceased are still in grief and are traumatized because their son was killed while entering their home.

In assessing the sentencing guidelines, Justice Burnett adopted a determinate sentence at a starting point of 40 years. He then considered the aggravating factors of the offence and found that it was unprovoked and was committed in a public space.

There was nothing mitigating and one year was added to the sentence.

Aggravating for the offender was that he had previous convictions for robbery, firearm offences and manslaughter in 2015.

Mitigating for the offender was that he is relatively young and he has a trace of sickle cell disease.

Neverson has already spent three years four months and 17 days behind bars and this was deducted from his final sentence.

Neverson was represented by Patina Knights while Rose Ann Richardson led the case for the Crown.