DAVE WAYNE Ricketts, a 30-year-old private of the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF), was yesterday sentenced to life imprisonment for the beating to death of a four-year-old boy who was left in his care on April 5, 2003.
A Home Circuit Court jury retired for 45 minutes before convicting Ricketts of the non-capital murder of Tyreike Hendricks.
Ricketts was sentenced by Mr. Justice Lennox Campbell, who recommended that he should serve 20 years before he is eligible for parole.
The Crown, represented by Kenneth Ferguson, Crown Counsel, led evidence that Ricketts had an intimate relationship with Kedesha Brooks, mother of the deceased. Brooks went to work on the morning of April 5 last year and asked Ricketts to take care of the child.
Brooks testified that when she returned home about 6:00 p.m. that day, she noticed that the deceased was wrapped in a sheet in bed with only the top of his head showing. The accused was not there at the time. She removed the sheet and noticed several injuries on the child. She took him to a private doctor and was advised to take him to the Bustamante Hospital for Children.
Medical evidence was given that the child had died before the mother returned home from work. The body had severe injuries to the head and abdomen. The liver had lacerations and the injuries were caused by a blunt object which was used with moderate to severe force. There was also bleeding in the brain.
Brooks said that Ricketts had told her sometime before the day of the incident that if she did not have a child for him then the deceased could not live with them. She said she and Ricketts lived together and Ricketts had beaten her several times and on one occasion she had a miscarriage after he had beaten her.
In an unsworn statement, Ricketts, of a Donmair Close address, Kingston 8, said the child was not feeling well and he went to buy food. He said he received a call from Brooks that the child had died. Ricketts denied beating the child.
Attorney-at-law Arthur Kitchin, who represented Ricketts, made a mitigation plea in which he asked the judge to be lenient with Ricketts.
