It was not unusual for him to find love notes propped strategically in any drawer he used, often, left by his little girl for him to find while she was at school.

Those notes would warm his heart, but since June 5, 2018, opening those same drawers no longer come with the promise of any of those tokens as his bubbly nine-year-old daughter had been lured, raped and murdered by her then 13-year-old neighbour and schoolmate.

On Friday, the Westmoreland father and his wife and family members struggled with the memories of their child which all came rushing back during a sentencing exercise for the now 17-year-old convicted of those dastardly offences and sentenced to life imprisonment with eligibility for parole after 23 years and nine months.

Prosecutors say the child was raped, buggered and killed by the accused, whom he knew, after she accepted his invitation to pick apples as they walked home from school on June 5, 2018. The promised treat to the child, who reportedly loved fruits, was never fulfilled as her body was found near a guava tree which is about 15 to 20 feet from the same apple tree. A post-mortem report showed that the diminutive girl died of asphyxia caused by manual strangulation. She also had lacerations of the vagina and anus.

“Growing up she would go school and leave little notes for me, she would always tell me ‘daddy, I love you ‘and write her little notes and leave it in the drawers she knew I would open. So, you know it is the first thing I would see when I opened it. She always had a special place in my heart. At one point, I feel I would go crazy but it is just God’s mercy,” that father told the Jamaica Observer following the ruling on Friday at the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.

He said his family, since the incident, has almost been torn apart, noting that if they had the means they would have relocated from the community in a bid to escape the pain their former haven now carries.

“At one point the family basically mash up, it never really all that well with us, but because of God’s mercies we just cope and try to go forward. It is what is,” the grieving father, who was the one to find her body during a community search, said.

The court on Friday heard that the accused, who would sometimes be transported to school along with the nine-year-old and other students from the community by her father, had been trusted by others to see to the well-being of the smaller children in the area. According to the father, neither the accused nor his family members had expressed sympathy for what happened to his child since the incident. The court was also told that the child’s sister and aunt have not celebrated their birthdays since June 2018 as it was the same day that their tiny relative was killed. Family members had to be sedated after the discovery of the child’s body, the court was told. Her mother, who said she now suffers from insomnia, confided that she found intimacy with her husband difficult as she thinks about her daughter “gasping for her last breath and lying on the ground”.

Reflecting on the sentence handed down on Friday by Supreme Court Judge Courtney Daye, the conflicted father uttered:

“I feel more or less that he could get more time but you know as a minor he really couldn’t give him the maximum so he had to reduce because he is minor but I think he dealt with him fairly. It could be little more harsher, although he gave him 23 years nine months. It is satisfying to me in a sense. I am just glad it’s kind of over because it keeps on reminding and reminding me over and over four or five years now, it is really not easy,” he said, his voice trailing off.

On Friday, Director of Public Prosecutions Paula Llewellyn, who prosecuted the case, told the Sunday Observer, “in my career I have never prosecuted a case like this where a child initiated and carried through what was a very, very heinous act.

“I have been around for a little over 30 years as a prosecutor and this has got to be one of the saddest cases I have ever done as a prosecutor in my life,” the DPP stated.

“I also have never prosecuted a situation where after the death of the victim I was able to successfully prove that both buggery and rape took place, usually you have vive voce [oral] evidence from the victim, but the forensic evidence was very powerful; the evidence of the forensic pathologist, the evidence from the expert in biology from the forensic lab and also the police investigation was quite good.

“What was quite clear is that the investigators had full cooperation of members of the community, and it is so important that the people recognise that the police alone cannot do this business of solving crime,” she stated further.

Sentencing Judge Daye, in addressing the convicted teen who was implacable throughout the entire exercise, said, among other things, that the evidence of the pathologist contradicted what he said about the young girl being strangled after she had been violated by one of the two men he claimed were on the scene and were the main perpetrators.

“You allowed yourself to be overcome by this abnormal, for your age, sexual passion to an innocent young child and it is of the highest order, and it has to get a sentence that reflects that,” the judge said.

“What makes it more serious is the vulnerability, the tender age, the defencelessness of the little child and that is why this length of sentence must be given. I appreciate that this has been a very gruesome murder and a murder which has in many respects shattered the confidence of the community where it happened and affected the wider society. She was so young and in the prime of innocence it is also very disturbing. It certainly generates strong feelings of anger. I appreciate that he keeps saying he is not the offender, but the verdict is that he is the offender,” the judge said, noting that it was ‘such a horrific murder’.

For the offence of murder, the judge sentenced the young man to 23 years and nine months; for the offence of rape ,18 years; and the maximum of 10 years for the buggery charge. The prison terms will, however, run concurrently so that he will spend the longest of the three sentences, that of 23 years and nine months.