By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterA 28-YEAR-OLD mother of four young children was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment for beating to death a two-year-old child who was left in her care by the child's father with whom she had an intimate relationship.
She is Keisha Williams, vendor, of Ten Miles, Bull Bay, St. Andrew who was convicted last month of non-capital murder. Two-year-old Jevon Arnold died on August 23, 2002 after he was severely beaten.
Despite pleas from attorney-at-law Christopher Townsend for her to be given a short prison sentence so she could see her children grow into adulthood, Mrs. Justice Carol Beswick recommended that she should serve 15 years before she was eligible for parole.
The judge told Williams that her lawyer said her sudden removal from her children would traumatise them but Jevon's sudden removal must have traumatised his family.
Mr. Townsend said he did not know what went wrong with Williams but the judge said "what we know is that Jevon has gone to his grave with multiple injuries at a very tender age".
Williams is the mother of four children ranging in age from two to 12 years.
The Crown represented by Grace Henry, Crown Counsel, led evidence that in mid-July, 2002, Joseph Arnold, father of the deceased, took the child to Williams and asked her to take care of him. The child died on August 23, 2002. Investigations by Detective Clayton Ritchie led to the arrest of the accused.
Arnold testified in the Home Circuit Court that he visited the child regularly and on August 1, 2002 he saw the child with about three belt marks on his body and a swelling to his forehead. He asked Williams what happened to the child and she said he fell off the bed and hit his forehead. He said Williams admitted beating the child because he had defecated on himself.
SWOLLEN ABDOMEN
He told her not to beat him again. Arnold said his son had a swollen abdomen when he took him to Williams. He said one day Williams called him and said she and the child were at the hospital. The child was admitted for about a week and then released.
He said on August 23, 2002, he received a phone call from Williams that she was taking the child to the hospital because he was ill. She later called him and told him that she was at the hospital and the child was dead.
Medical evidence was given that when the child was seen at the hospital on August 23, 2002, he had multiple bruises on the body.
Dr. Ere Seshaia who performed the post mortem said that death was due to multiple injuries consistent with beating with a belt. He said death would have occured within 12 hours after the beating. The doctor said several internal organs were severely damaged as a result of the beating.
Williams, in her defence, denied beating the child on August 23, 2002.
