Man convicted of killing four-year-old Kingston boy gets life sentence

Livern Barrett, Senior Gleaner Writer

Marlon McMillan, the man convicted of killing a four-year-old boy in Allman Town, central Kingston, has been sentenced to life imprisonment.

McMillan has also been sentenced to 15 years in prison for wounding the boy's grandmother in the same 2013 shooting incident.

The sentences were handed down this afternoon in the Home Circuit Court by High Court judge Justice David Fraser.

Fraser ordered that McMillan must serve 25 years before he becomes eligible for parole.

The sentences are to run concurrently.

Prosecutor Sahai Whittingham Maxwell led evidence that four-year-old Roshaun Burford died from a gunshot wound to the head after McMillan opened fire on a neighbour in a dispute over a broken water pipe in their Allman Town tenement in 2013.

In handing down sentence, Fraser said he took into consideration the fact that an innocent child was killed and that the family suffered tremendously.

Another factor the judge said he considered was the prevalence of murders in Jamaica.