Painter David Smith’s sentencing delayed to October in Paulwell child murder case

Sentencing for David Smith, who admitted a role in the abduction and murder of politician Phillip Paulwell’s 10-month-old daughter Sarayah and her mother Toshyna Patterson, will not take place until October 2.

Smith, 35, works as a painter. He entered guilty pleas last month under a plea deal and was remanded yesterday after Chief Justice Bryan Sykes said he needed further time to weigh a legal authority the Crown had only recently placed before the court.

Sykes noted that prosecutors filed a fresh authority yesterday in place of one they had withdrawn. He apologised to relatives of the victims who had come expecting the sentencing to proceed, saying the adjournment was required because sentencing practice continues to shift.

“Sentencing has become far more meticulous. Twenty years ago, judges would simply arrive at a sentence, but now there is a methodology that has to be employed, and there has also been a change in the law,” he said.

Smith, who has two children, pleaded guilty to two counts each of capital murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap. He was charged alongside the alleged organiser of the plot, Leoda Bradshaw, a former United States Navy petty officer who was reported to have been in a relationship with Phillip Paulwell when the killings occurred and who is also mother to one of Paulwell’s children.

Bradshaw faces two counts each of capital murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap. She is charged jointly with Roland Balfour and Bjorn Black over the same killings. Balfour, who is Bradshaw’s cousin, is accused on two counts each of accessory before the fact to murder and kidnapping. Black is charged with two counts each of murder, kidnapping, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to kidnap, as well as firearms-related offences.

According to the prosecution, Sarayah and Patterson, then 27, were seized from their home in St Andrew on September 9, 2023, taken to east Kingston, shot, and their bodies set on fire. Richard Brown and Roshane Miller, two other men linked to the matter, have already pleaded guilty to related charges and received sentences.

The other accused remain in custody and are due back in court on September 17 for a trial-readiness hearing. Their trial is fixed to open on September 28. Franklin Grenyion and Shamar Hanson appear for Smith.