By Latrishka Thomas
Not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter, was the verdict passed down by the 11-member jury who sat through the lengthy murder trial of accused, Kenroy ‘Kenny’ Joseph.
Joseph was said to have killed fellow villager Luciene Glennex Brodie after an incident on February 24, 2016.
Both men reportedly got into an altercation at Mack Pond in All Saints that day, which led to Joseph using a cutlass to inflict wounds to Brodie’s head.
Joseph, who was 39 years old at the time, was charged with attempted murder, but that charge was elevated to murder after Brodie succumbed to his injuries on March 16 that year.
The defendant denied murdering Brodie and became the first defendant to have a jury trial since Covid-19 struck in 2020.
The evidence presented in the trial, though conflicting, was sufficient for the jury to come to a decision in just a few hours.
Some witnesses claimed to have only seen part of the altercation where Joseph was chopping Brodie.
But others claimed that Brodie was the aggressor and struck Joseph first.
The accused took the stand and admitted that he chopped the deceased but claimed that he “had no choice but to defend myself”.
In his account, Joseph said: “I took the cutlass from my side and tried to chop the stick out of his hand. The cutlass fell from my hand and that’s when he hit me in my head, my chest, and my stomach.
“I fell to the ground back-way, so I had to scrabble because he was coming at me real aggressively. I scramble back to my feet and that’s when I defend myself and I chop him.”
He claimed that his intention was to wait on the field for someone but while walking across he was confronted by Brodie who attempted to defend his boss whom Joseph had earlier accused of “taking food out of [his] mouth”.
Joseph will be sentenced by Justice Colin Williams for the lesser charge of manslaughter on November 4.