Bittersweet Mother’s Day for Manchester mom, family

MANDEVILLE, Manchester — Today marks the fourth Mother’s Day Donna Walker-Ellis has had to grieve the barbaric killing of her daughter, Shadae Brown, at the hands of convict Kevon Lesley who was sentenced to life in prison last Friday in the Manchester Circuit Court.

“It is a great relief, because my daughter cannot come back…I am happy for closure,” Walker-Ellis told the media shortly after the sentencing was handed down by trial judge Grace Henry McKenzie.

Thirty-two-year-old Lesley, otherwise called Nice, will have to serve 30 years and four months before he is eligible for parole. He was convicted on February 3 by a seven-member jury following a two-week trial in the Manchester Circuit Court.

Lesley was represented by attorney Norman Godfrey.

Brown was fatally stabbed in front of her then 11-year-old son three years ago. The now 14-year-old testified in the trial after witnessing the March 10, 2023 murder of his mother.

The son and his then five-year-old cousin were left traumatised after witnessing his 28-year-old mother being stabbed repeatedly with three knives by her spouse, despite their cries for mercy.

Her son was also reportedly threatened by Lesley during the murder committed in Newport, Manchester.

“The son said to him, ‘Weh you a do mi mother so fah?’ and him seh, ‘Move from yah suh before mi stab you too,’” Brown’s mother, Walker-Ellis, said as she shared the gruesome details of her daughter’s murder during an interview with the Jamaica Observer three years ago.

At that time, a senior police source said investigators believed the couple had a dispute about 8:30 pm. A police report said the man then proceeded to use the knives to stab Brown before fleeing the scene.

The children were reportedly locked inside the house with Brown’s body. After hours of trying to get out of the house to seek assistance, the 11-year-old alerted neighbours.

A bus owned by Brown’s relatives, which was given to the accused to drive, was found a short distance from the house with the keys inside and was reportedly used by neighbours to transport Brown to hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Brown’s family waited patiently for two consecutive days outside the Manchester Circuit Court for the sentencing, which was delayed twice.

“We have been waiting for this three years now and I am glad, I feel satisfied — although we are not going to get back Shadae Brown — but I feel a relief. We waited for three long years. [Thursday] the whole day, we waited. I feel good. We feel very pleased…All of my family members and friends who came out and supported us, give thanks,” Brown’s uncle told journalists last Friday.

Brown’s mother had told the Observer three years ago that her daughter was in an abusive relationship with Lesley.

Walker-Ellis said her daughter allowed Lesley back into her apartment in Daley’s Grove, Newport, two weeks before her murder, after the two had separated in January 2023 following an alleged dispute in which a chair was reportedly thrown at the woman.

“[In] January [2023] he lifted up the chair [from] round the table because he wanted to talk to her and she was never in a talking mood, so he lifted up the chair and lick after her and she blocked it with her hand. It even lick out the bulb in the kitchen. She rushed to the door and the force that she held the handle with, it popped off,” said Walker-Ellis.

“He left and kept on calling me and complaining. He called her and she blocked him. Within her, she [was] finished with him, but then he kept calling and begging her to come back, and she — with her soft heart — felt sorry for him. She is that type of person. So he came back one week and a couple days [ago, then] this happened,” added Walker-Ellis.

On February 3, Walker-Ellis praised God as she rejoiced at the guilty verdict.

“Shadae is my first of four girls. Justice has been served. I have been praying all this time for justice and it has been served, and I thank God. I spent sleepless nights and days fasting and praying and today God has answered my prayer. Thank you, Jesus,” she said.

“I was very hopeful. I believe so much in the Almighty God because I know no tears go unnoticed and no sin goes unpunished,” she added.

Walker-Ellis said people in the community of Newport were also pleased to hear the verdict.

“It means a lot to the community because of the type of person she was — she was very hard-working, always at work. She worked so hard, and for this to come and happen she never deserved this in no way,” she said.

“She was well known. Shadae was a people person — very jovial, very honest, very hard-working. She wore her heart on her sleeve. She was very kind,” she added.

Brown had been working at a private medical facility as a surgical assistant for close to eight months up to the day she was killed.

File photo of taxi operator Kevon Lesley leaving the Manchester Parish Court on April 26, 2023. (Photo: Kasey Williams)

Donna Walker-Ellis, mother of the late Shadae Brown, is flanked by her husband Roylyn Ellis (left) and her brother Max Walker outside the Manchester Circuit Court on Friday.