SECURITY guard Martin Powell, who was in August of 2019 captured on camera beating a man of unsound mind to death on premises at Waterloo Road in St Andrew, was on Tuesday sentenced to 22 years but will have to spend 16 years and 11 months behind bars for that murder.

Powell, who is reportedly from Mount Salus in Stony Hill, St Andrew, accosted the man who had wandered from the main road onto the premises of the Coconut Industry Board where he was on guard duty. Footage from security cameras mounted in the area showed Powell striking the man in the head, back, and neck some 16 times before dragging him by the shirt and depositing his remains at the entrance of the premises.

On Tuesday, Supreme Court judge Justice Carolyn Tie-Powell, from a starting point of 20 years, added eight years for the aggravating factors which included Powell’s status as a security guard, which she said indicated that he, “should have known better”; the number of blows he inflicted to the victim; his treatment of the body of the dead man; and the vulnerability of the individual given his apparent mental challenge.

Mitigating factors such as the fact that there was “no premeditation” and a strong community report in which individuals said the 39-year-old had acted out of character, however, reduced the 28 years to 22 years.

Justice Tie-Powell, in noting that she would have imposed a sentence of 22 years had Powell gone to trial, said given that he had pleaded guilty on the first occasion and had not wasted the court’s time, she was minded to apply a discount of 25 per cent, taking the sentence to 17 years and two months. After further deductions for his time spent in custody, Powell was sentenced to 16 years and 11 months with eligibility for parole after 12 years.

Justice Tie-Powell, in the meantime, labelled the former security guard’s actions as “truly horrendous”, adding that the murder was a “contrast” to the picture painted of Powell prior as a “commendable person”.

“What was done was egregious, a life has been lost,” Justice Tie-Powell declared.

On Tuesday, Powell, clad in a blue T-shirt and off-white jeans, sat quietly, his head bowed throughout the hearing which lasted just under half an hour.

The killing of that homeless man in 2019, who has not been named, came ahead of a spate of other similar attacks between 2021 and 2023.

In January 2021 police detained a person of interest as part of their investigations into an attack on six homeless men in Kingston in which four were hacked to death and two critically injured. Following those killings, the Government added 150 beds to a homeless shelter in downtown Kingston.

In 2022 the police in Kingston charged five juveniles with murder in connection with the death of a homeless man who was set on fire in August that year. The boys, ages 15 to 17, were charged with the murder of Lionel Johnson, who died at hospital where he was rushed by police who found him with severe burns on August 29. Johnson was reportedly set ablaze early in the morning in the vicinity of National Heroes’ Circle in Kingston. He died while undergoing treatment.

In April 2023, a man said to be of unsound mind became Portland’s fourth murder victim for the year when he was stabbed and killed on West Street in Port Antonio, Portland. The deceased was identified as Lee Donald of Long Bay in east Portland.

In September 2023, 25-year-old Ronaldo Ricketts, a resident of West Gate Hills in Montego Bay, St James, was charged with the murders of four homeless men who were killed that year in the parish.

In December 2023, 27-year-old Rushawn Bulgin was sentenced to 20 years for the murder of homeless man Matthew Lettman, who he bludgeoned to death while on video in March that year with a rock. Lettman’s body was discovered on Jimmy Cliff Boulevard in Montego Bay on March 7.