Eight years of pain

Time has not healed the wounds of two families in Thornton, St Elizabeth, whose recollections of the brutal deaths of St Elizabeth teens Ashnell ‘Joe’ Coke and Deswick ‘Donjay’ Williams were rekindled with the April 8 Court of Appeal ruling reclassifying the double-murder conviction as manslaughter.

The boys’ parents are as gutted and angry today as they were more than eight years ago because Ashnell and Deswick, both then 15, were killed by marijuana farmer Alton Baker on January 8, 2014, on allegations that they were thieves.

But the parents insist that the convicted killer has spun a narrative that is untruthful. They say the teenagers were chopped to death at a riverside while catching crayfish.

Jocelyn Coke, father of Ashnell, has rejected claims that the boys had stolen from Baker’s farm. He has struggled to get past that dreadful day.

“Him mistakenly think it was those two youths (stole from him). A so we know say a him kill them,” Jocelyn told The Gleaner.

Ashnell’s mother, Shanna Codner, said he was missed around the house and contends that the boys were killed innocently, having gone to Jackass Pass River to set their crayfish pots. The manslaughter ruling has left her with a bitter taste in her mouth and new cynicism for the courts.

The boys would have been 23 today, and Codner is saddened that Ashnell is not around to live his dream of becoming a farmer and working to support her.

Coke and Williams were said to have been caught by Baker stealing from his farm when he attacked them.

He later insisted that the two boys had, on several occasions, stolen from his farm.

A neighbour overheard Baker confessing to his grandmother that he had “chop dem in a dem ... head” shortly after the killings and contacted the police, who arrested him.

Baker subsequently told lawmen that “nobody nuh waan hear weh mi haffi seh. A long time dem two boy deh a thief out mi grung”.

The court accepted that the possibility of Baker being provoked to anger should have been left to the jury and allowed the appeal.

Deswick’s father, David Williams, and his sister, Natalie, are equally disturbed by the claims that Baker killed the teens out of provocation.

Like the Cokes, the Williams family, too, believe they have been let down by the guardians of justice.

“How can a man kill two innocent little child and they give him reduced [sentence]? They wasn’t stealing. They set their fish pot. Is draw them go there to draw,” she said.

The elder Williams has a tinge of regret, having introduced the boys to setting crayfish pots at the location weeks before their deaths.

The distraught father told The Gleaner that the court case had drained his pockets and affected the health of his wife, who is now crippled, having suffered several strokes.

“The youth dem get a innocent death ’cause through dem nah trouble him. If dem did a trouble him and see him, they woulda run, but him just come on pon dem and him chop dem up and bush dem,” Williams said.

Crossing water and trekking through heavy vegetation on a hillside, last Tuesday was the first time in eight years that the elder Williams was visiting the death spot.

There, he stared at one of the fish pots the boys had used to catch crayfish.

That sight brought back memories of the dreadful 2 a.m. search that unearthed the bodies piled on top of each other by the riverbed.

“Fi mi one deh pon him face inna the water. Dem order the police fi take off the bush, and Jesus Christ, di next one deh on top a fi mi back, you know, with him face turn up so inna di air. Wicked boy that!” Williams said of Baker.

Williams said that Baker was a ganja farmer, a fact confirmed by court documents. Williams said he had warned the boys to steer clear of the ganja field.

“We know the two youth that use to give him trouble. But a di wrong two him chop up. If dem even see him a come, dem nah run ‘cause dem nuh trouble him. Same a how dem a draw dem pot, him chop him right ya suh,” Williams said, pointing to the back of his head, “and him look round and dem chop him suh,” he added, indicating a face wound.

He continued: “One of the youth ran and was chased, and him run him down and chop him and carry him back, and when him carry him back him chop him from this ear to the next one, buss him head inna two.”

Williams said the boys were buried the same day without their brains.

The Court of Appeal also downgraded the conviction to a lesser sentence of 24 years, six years fewer than the original term.

In its judgment delivered, the appeal court determined that the trial judge “erred in failing to leave the issue of provocation to the jury, thereby depriving the appellant of the consideration of the lesser offence of manslaughter”.

The community of Thornton is angry at the appeal ruling.

“What! It can’t work. Justice don’t serve! We still a mourn,” one woman said.

“The pickney dem innocent. Sixty years the boy fi get. Thirty each. Twenty-four is not as much. A hang him fi hang!” another resident said.

The residents have poured scorn on the new judgment.

“You kill my pickney and win appeal and soon come a road. Two people you kill and get 30 years. That unfair. The innocent children were gruesomely murdered and you put dem back inna river fi lay down,” a female ​resident said.

andre.williams@gleanerjm.com