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Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Duo to serve 3 months in prison for killing, burying neighbour

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502 days ago
20240229
Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds

Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds

NICOLE DRAYTON

Two men from Va­len­cia, who ad­mit­ted to bru­tal­ly killing a neigh­bour and dis­pos­ing of his body af­ter he threat­ened one of them, have each been sen­tenced to a lit­tle over 14 years in prison for manslaugh­ter.

How­ev­er, Franklyn “Bar­ney” Julien, 34, and 31-year-old Al­is­ter “Star” Fer­di­nand are ex­pect­ed to be re­leased in al­most three months as they al­ready served the ma­jor­i­ty of their sen­tence while on re­mand.

Julien and Fer­di­nand were ini­tial­ly charged with mur­der­ing Oron­del “Half-a-Man” Reyes on an un­known date be­tween Sep­tem­ber 16 and 29, 2009.

On Tues­day, they were al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter based on a plea agree­ment with the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for the duo, yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds went with the 24-year start­ing point sug­gest­ed by their de­fence at­tor­neys and pros­e­cu­tors un­der the agree­ment.

She then ap­plied two-year dis­counts based on the fact that both men had clean crim­i­nal records be­fore be­ing charged, co­op­er­at­ed with po­lice up­on their ar­rests, and did not com­mit any dis­ci­pli­nary of­fences whilst on re­mand await­ing tri­al.

She al­so point­ed out that Fer­di­nand was an or­der­ly at the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP) and was re­spon­si­ble for clean­ing the air­ing area.

“It shows that with­in the sys­tem that you can be trust­ed to have a bit of move­ment be­sides just pass­ing time in a cell,” she said.

Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds then de­duct­ed the time they spent on re­mand from their sen­tences leav­ing them with a few months to serve be­fore their re­lease.

In ad­dress­ing both men, Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds de­scribed Reyes’ killing as “hor­ri­bly vi­o­lent”.

She en­cour­aged both men to be cau­tious and to avoid con­flict.

The judge al­so en­cour­aged Julien, who did not at­tend Sec­ondary school and was il­lit­er­ate when he en­tered the prison sys­tem, to con­tin­ue to work on im­prov­ing the read­ing and writ­ing skills he de­vel­oped in prison so he could at­tempt to ob­tain qual­i­fi­ca­tions as an elec­tri­cian up­on his re­lease.

“No­body is tak­ing a soft ap­proach. We don’t lock away peo­ple and throw away the keys,” she said.

Ac­cord­ing to the facts used for the agree­ment, Reyes was found in a shal­low grave off Nicholas Trace in Va­len­cia days af­ter he was re­port­ed miss­ing.

A post-mortem re­vealed that Reyes had been chopped over two dozen times in his head.

When he was ar­rest­ed by homi­cide de­tec­tives, Julien con­fessed.

He claimed that Reyes gave him $400 to start a fruit stall and punch busi­ness in their com­mu­ni­ty.

Julien claimed that he re­paid Reyes with in­ter­est and on the day of the killing in­di­cat­ed that he want­ed to end the part­ner­ship. How­ev­er, he claimed Reyes drew a firearm and threat­ened to kill him. He claimed that Fer­di­nand in­ter­vened and grabbed hold of Reyes while he went for the cut­lass, which he used to chop Reyes sev­er­al times.

Julien ad­mit­ted he bor­rowed a gar­den fork and wheel­bar­row from a neigh­bour and used both tools to trans­port Reyes’s body and bury it. He lat­er con­fessed to killing Reyes to the neigh­bour who he had bor­rowed the tools from.

Oth­er neigh­bours al­so wit­nessed the duo push­ing the wheel­bar­row to the lo­ca­tion where Reyes was found buried.

Julien and Fer­di­nand were rep­re­sent­ed by Deli­cia Hel­wig-Robert­son and Michelle Gon­za­les, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment. Char­maine Samuel and Gillana Guy rep­re­sent­ed the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).


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