Crying error, G-City gangster gets 15 years for murder

Omar Johnson, a reputed high-profile member of the G-City Gang, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for a home-invasion murder in Montego Bay, St James, last year.

Justice Stephanie Jackson Haisley, who imposed the sentence, ordered that Johnson, 24, serve 14 years before he is eligible for parole

The sentence was handed down in the St James Circuit Court on Wednesday.

Johnson pleaded guilty earlier this month to the shooting death of Sybil Malcolm at her Cornwall Courts home on February 15 last year.

He admitted, in a caution statement to police investigators, that he entered Malcolm’s home to steal something and that she was shot during a tussle for his firearm, but insisted it was not intentional.

“Mi lef’ go scheme fi look something fi tief. Mi neva have it inna mi intention fi kill nobody you know,” he wrote in the caution statement seen by The Gleaner.

“Mi and di lady did a rassle (wrestle) suh til she get shot. Mi not even did a realise seh mi get shot, too.”

But according to prosecutors, Malcolm and other family members, including a nine-year-old, endured several terrifying minutes before she was shot and killed.

About 2:45 a.m., the family was at home when a man was seen peering into the house through a bathroom window.

CHILDREN SECURED

The sound of a door opening caused one family member to gather the children in her section of the house and move them to Malcolm’s bedroom.

A television set was placed behind the door and the nine-year-old left there “to secure the door”.

The family member, along with Malcolm, went to a side door to block the man from gaining entry. “The deceased braced this side door with her body,” the family member recounted.

According to the relative, the man knocked on the door and shouted, “Mumma, open the door. Mi nah do you nutten.”

The family member said while they braced against the door, the man used a piece of steel to break the glass section of the door.

Moments later, the witness recounted hearing a loud explosion and ran to the door where Malcolm was, but did not see her.

The relative recounted exiting a back door and seeing the gunman walking and staggering in the yard “as if he was going to fall”.

The family member returned to the house and saw Malcolm stooped on the verandah “in a pool of blood”. She later died at hospital.

Superintendent Vernon Ellis, commander for the St James police, described Wednesday as “a good day for law-abiding citizens”.

“We want the other violence producers in St James to realise that we are coming at them with all the tools in our toolbox, and when they are caught, and we know they will be caught, that they stand to spend many years behind bars,” said Ellis.

livern.barrett@gleanerjm.com