A ST. James man, who was convicted last year of the murder of the mother of his two infant children, was sentenced to life imprisonment on Friday.
Devon Collins, 32, also called 'Smokey Joe', of Lilliput, St. James, will not be eligible for parole until he has served 40 years. Collins was convicted in September last year of the murder of 32-year-old Veronica Hall of Lilliput.
Evidence was given at the trial that on the early morning of January 24, 2004, Collins threw gasolene on the doors and windows of a dwelling house in Lilliput in which Hall and other family members were sleeping. Hall was burnt to death.
Two weeks after the incident, the police found Collins in the Savanna-la-Mar Hospital in Westmoreland. He was suffering from burns to his body. The medical evidence was that Collins could have received the burns when he set fire to the house.
Collins and Hall had lived together for seven years and had separated eight months before the incident.
Attorney-at-law Winston Douglas, who represented Collins, pleaded with the judge not impose the death penalty.
Justice Paulette Williams, in passing sentence in the Home Circuit Court, said she was impressed with the assistance Mr. Douglas had given to the court. The judge told Collins that what he did was a cold, callous and calculated act.
