Killer gets life in prison

Published: Wednesday | May 20, 2009


Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

Supreme Court judge Donald McIntosh has sentenced 23-year-old labourer Mohinder Singh of Greenwich Town, Kingston 12, to life imprisonment for the murder of Ryan Dacres. The judge ordered that Singh must serve 30 years before he can be paroled.

Singh was convicted on May 8. A Home Circuit Court jury retired for more than an hour and found him guilty. Sentencing was put off until last Friday.

Valerie Walker, the mother of the deceased who was the sole eyewitness to the murder, was shot dead in September 2004.

The Crown, represented by attorney-at-law Kathy Pyke and Jeremy Tyme, assistant director of public prosecutions, applied under Section 31 (D) of the Evidence Act to have Walker's statement to the police tendered into evidence and the application was granted. The statement was read to the jury.

Gunned down

Dacres, otherwise known as 'Billy', was shot dead in Greenwich Town on June 26, 2003.

The witness said in the statement given to the police shortly after her son was gunned down that she saw the accused and another man firing shots at her son on June 26, 2003. She said she first heard gunshots and saw when her son ran and fall in front of her shop.

She said in the statement that the accused, whom she knew prior to the incident, and his accomplice approached her son and continued shooting him. The men fired at the witness but she escaped uninjured.

Her testimony was corroborated by medical and ballistics evidence.

Singh said in an unworn statement from the dock said that he knew nothing about the murder and was not in the area at the time of the killing.

barbara.gayle@gleanerjm.com