Pain still fresh for father of slain daughter
Published:Sunday | April 24, 2016 | 12:00 AMLivern Barrett
IT HAS been nearly three years since his daughter was brutally slain by her spurned lover, former police Constable Lincoln McKoy, but the emotions are still fresh for Fitzroy King.
McKoy was convicted in the Home Circuit Court earlier this month for shooting Jessica King to death at the Errol Flynn Marina, located in Portland, in August 2013, but that has done little to ease the hurt and the pain for the 62-year-old farmer.
"It heartrending bad. The guy [McKoy], although dem find him guilty an' him a go get a sentence, mi feel like sey it fall short a lot," he said during a recent interview with The Gleaner.
"Because him still alive, him can come out a prison and end up a live a normal life, married and have pickney. Jessica dead and gone," he reasoned.
Prosecutors Paula Llewellyn and Joel Brown led evidence that Jessica died instantly after McKoy used his police-issued Glock pistol to shoot her in the forehead and neck from point blank range before shooting himself twice in the face.
PLEADING FOR HER LIFE
A schoolteacher who was at the Marina at the time gave police investigators a statement detailing how the 21-year-old pleaded for her life.
"Her words were, 'No, Lincoln! No, Lincoln! Nuh do it! Yuh a go kill mi! Si di woman a pass deh!'," the teacher said in her statement, which was admitted into evidence at the trial.
"At the same time, the female was making gestures, her arms stretched out, pleading with him not to kill her, almost on bended knees," she continued.
The teacher said she got scared and started running to her car when gunshots rang out.
The former detective constable took the witness stand and denied any involvement in Jessica's death, but a seven-member jury deliberated for 45 minutes before returning a unanimous guilty verdict.
McKoy, who was attached to the Portland police at the time, is scheduled to be sentenced on Friday, and if the elder King had his way, the former constable would remain behind bars for the rest of his life.
"Mi woulda want him get 200 years [in prison], but the law nah go give him dat," he said before indicating that he would be satisfied with a sentence of between 25 and 30 years without the possibility of parole.
"A wah him work fah him suppose to get, an' him work fi a long sentence, suh him suppose to get a long sentence," he insisted.
Fitzroy King said McKoy and his daughter met nearly three years before her death while they were attending a tertiary institution in Portland.
King said McKoy's conviction has brought some relief for himself and his former spouse because they were both nervous that he would have been acquitted.