Canadian Couple Faces Life Sentence For Killing 10-Y-O Jamaican Boy, Shakeil Boothewas beaten to death following months of abuse and neglect after he migrated to Canada to live with his father ....The boy was pulled from school and isolated from relatives and neighbours in order to hide his increasingly visible injuries.

The father and step-mother of a Jamaican boy living in Canada, who died after being beaten severely three years ago, have been found guilty of second-degree murder in an Ontario court. 

According to the Toronto Star, both parents, Nichelle Rowe-Boothe and Garfield Boothe are facing mandatory life sentences. Ten-year-old Shakeil Boothe was beaten to death following months of abuse and neglect after he migrated to Canada to live with his father. The Toronto Star reports that Boothe-Rowe wept in a Brampton, Ontario court after the jury handed down its verdict on Saturday following roughly 14 hours of deliberation, while Garfield Boothe remained stoic. 

Defence lawyers say the couple was “disappointed” by the verdict. None of Shakeil’s other relatives — including his mother, who lives the U.S. — were present for the verdict. Jurors heard gruesome evidence of how Shakeil — who came from Jamaica to live with his father in 2009 — was regularly beaten, deprived of food and chained to his bed in the months before he was found dead in his bed on May 27, 2011.  The Toronto Star says they were also shown autopsy photos showing scars of varying ages across Shakeil’s bony shoulders, back and legs; swelling in his hands and thighs and open wounds on his shins, some of which were yellowed with infection. 

The boy was pulled from school and isolated from relatives and neighbours in order to hide his increasingly visible injuries, according to testimony. He was never taken to a doctor despite his worsening condition, for fear it would reveal the abuse he endured. 

The court was told that Shakeil died “minutes to hours” after a savage beating, which left him with a black eye, bruises in several places on his head and refractured a previously cracked but healing rib. 
The attack caused widespread internal bleeding and overwhelmed his weakened body, precipitating what the pathologist called the boy’s “downward spiral” toward death. 

Shakeil’s father and stepmother admitted they kept his death quiet for a full day before calling authorities as they planned Boothe-Rowe’s escape to the U.S. with the boy’s infant half-brother. 

1 comment:

  1. ESTEBAN AGOSTO REIDApril 7, 2014 at 7:15 AM

    Totally disgusting and sickening. Poor child, never had a chance from these savages.

    ReplyDelete