Painter’s sentencing delayed in Paulwell murders as Appeal Court upholds Blackwood term

The sentencing of painter David Smith, who pleaded guilty in the abduction and killing of politician Philip Paulwell’s infant daughter and her mother, has been deferred to October 2 after Chief Justice Bryan Sykes said he needed more time to weigh a fresh legal authority filed by the Crown.

Smith, 35, entered his guilty plea last month under a plea arrangement and was remanded on Friday. Prosecutors submitted a new authority that day to replace one they were no longer relying on. Apologising to relatives of the victims who had come for sentencing, Sykes said delays of this kind are now unavoidable because sentencing is more rigorous than it once was, with a formal methodology and changes in the law that judges must follow.

A father of two, Smith admitted two counts each of capital murder, conspiracy to murder, kidnapping and conspiracy to kidnap. He was charged alongside alleged mastermind Leah Bradshaw, a former United States Navy petty officer who was reportedly in a relationship with Paulwell at the time and is the mother of one of his children. Bradshaw faces matching counts and is jointly charged with Rowland Balfour and Bjorn Black. Balfour, her cousin, faces two counts each of accessory before the fact to murder and kidnapping. Black faces two counts each of murder, kidnapping, conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to kidnap, plus firearms offences.

Prosecutors say 10-month-old Sarayah and her mother, Tashana Patterson, 27, were taken from their St. Andrew home on September 9, 2023, moved to eastern Kingston, shot and their bodies burned. Richard Brown and Roshane Miller have already pleaded guilty to related offences and been sentenced. The remaining accused, all in custody, return on September 17 for a trial readiness hearing ahead of a September 28 trial. Franklin Graham and Deshane Hanson represent Smith.

In a separate ruling on Friday, the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction and sentence of Wade Blackwood, who in 2021 received life imprisonment after admitting he was the gunman in the January 2, 2018 murder-for-hire killing of businesswoman Simone Campbell-Collymore, 32, outside her First Regional apartment in Red Hills, St. Andrew. Taxi driver Winston Walters, 36, was also shot dead. Police identified Blackwood and the late Rupert Errol Dunn, known as Jim, from nearby CCTV. Blackwood pleaded guilty in January 2021 to two murders and illegal possession of a firearm and was given concurrent terms amounting to 35 years before parole eligibility.

The appeal panel held that his February 9, 2024 resentencing under a plea deal made the challenge obsolete. Through attorney Shneeka Sparks, Blackwood had argued the guilty-plea discount was inadequate and that a 30-year starting point was wrong. After the ruling he abandoned the appeal. Under the deal, which cut 15 years from his term after he testified against co-accused, he becomes eligible for parole after 20 years. He claimed Jim forced him to carry out the hit over a gang-related firearm debt tied to his brother.

Omar Best Collymore, Campbell-Collymore’s then husband, received two life sentences plus 18 months for conspiracy and must serve 46 years and six months before parole. Co-conspirators Dwayne Pink, Michael Adams and Shakeel Edwards also drew life terms. The Crown said Collymore ordered the hit to claim multi-million-dollar life policies taken out three months earlier, under which he stood to receive 70 per cent and their two children 15 per cent each. He was arrested at Norman Manley International Airport the day before her funeral while trying to leave Jamaica.

Earlier this month Collymore, Pink, Adams and Edwards returned to the Home Circuit Court on illegal-firearm, shooting-with-intent and conspiracy-to-murder charges involving an unnamed woman linked to Collymore when his wife was killed. Kerry Jonas is also named on that indictment. On Thursday Edwards, who pleaded guilty to the new charges, was sentenced to six years and nine months but, having already spent more than seven years in custody, is due for release.