Break-up shake-up

WESTERN BUREAU:

A St Elizabeth father is hoping that a judge hands down the death penalty for his daughter’s former flame who stabbed her multiple times in her sleep last year. He believes that this could be a lesson to other abusive and potentially murderous partners to prevent love from turning fatal.

Neville Sinclair, the father of 26-year-old Nevia Sinclair, who was brutally stabbed to death while asleep in Brinkley district, St Elizabeth, in January 2020, wants Jermaine Miller to pay for the murder with his life.

Miller, who was in a relationship with the now-deceased woman, pleaded guilty to her murder in the Black River Circuit Court on Tuesday and will be sentenced on March 25.

“All this time, we were just waiting to hear justice serve on the killer, and yesterday, is like everything just come back to me ... ,” he said after Tuesday’s hearing. “When the pathologist read out the post-mortem report and I heard the amount of stab and cut mi daughter get, I said to myself, ‘I hope he gets a death sentence or a life sentence’.”

There has been no state execution in Jamaica since 1988.

According to the elderly Sinclair, since the incident, which occurred in his own house, where his daughter had returned to live after ending an abusive relationship with Miller, he and his wife have not yet come to grips with what occurred.

STILL TRAUMATISED

“Since the past year, Nevia’s mother and I have not been getting any sleep at night because of the memories of her death. We have been getting support from the church family and community members, but it is very, very tough. Not even the room where the incident took place we hardly go into ... . It is the grace of God while we are still alive today,” he told The Gleaner.

Stung by his daughter’s unfortunate death, Sinclair said he hopes Jamaican men will now understand that women are not property.

“Since my daughter died, is several other cases mi hear where the man dem a kill off the woman dem, but I hope dem tek this incident as a learning point and see that this man will serve the penalty for my daughter’s death because men need to learn that no man don’t own any woman,” Sinclair said.

The grieving father told The Gleaner that it was after his daughter’s death that he became aware of another reason why his daughter had broken things off with Miller as she was only aware of one of his three children, two of whom were born during their relationship.

On the night of the incident, Miller climbed through a window to his ex-girlfriend’s room and stabbed her to death while she was asleep. While he was fleeing the scene, Mr Sinclair shouted at him, but he kept on running.

Miller was represented in court by attorney-at-law Peter Champagnie.

Domestic violence has claimed hundreds of lives over the past decade.

At a Gleaner Editors’ Forum last month, retired Deputy Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant expressed concerned that it is not taken seriously across the society.

“I don’t think we understand domestic violence in Jamaica. We narrow it to the view that it is spousal violence and that it is man-and-woman story and it’s kind of private,” she said, adding that children produced in these relationships were prime recruits for gangs.

editorial@gleanerjm.com