JASON Gray — the Trelawny-based tattoo artist serving time for luring 12-year-old Omari Sterling and 10-year-old Maleeka Mitchell from a St James beach with the promise of buying them fast food in July of 2014, only to murder them and dump their bodies in fishing ponds in another parish — has failed to convince the Appeal Court that his sentences of life imprisonment on both counts, with the stipulation that he serves 29 years before eligibility for parole, was “manifestly excessive”.

The single ground of appeal filed in 2020 focused on the duration of the pre-parole periods imposed and not the imposition of the two sentences of life imprisonment.

Gray’s attorney, Leroy Equiano, contended that his client pleaded guilty on the first relevant date and argued further that “despite the heinous circumstances of the children’s killing, the appellant’s punishment should have been measured in light of the penalties imposed by the court on offenders for similar offences”.

Equiano also argued that the regret expressed by Gray for his actions should have been considered by the sentencing judge.

The judges of the Appeal Court, however, in disagreeing and dismissing Gray’s petition, said: “Based on the heinous nature of the murders of the two children, and having regard to the proportionality, totality and parity principles, we are unable to find the pre-parole periods imposed to be manifestly excessive.”

Said the judges in affirming Gray’s sentences: “We are of the view that the learned sentencing judge largely applied the relevant statutory provisions and common law principles in sentencing the appellant on the two counts of murder. Therefore, we cannot say that the learned sentencing judge erred when deciding not to grant a discount notwithstanding the appellant’s guilty plea.”

“The learned sentencing judge’s refusal to grant a discount was well within her discretion based on the facts before her. According to the appellant’s caution statement and the facts unearthed through the investigation of the case, he and Kemar [a man implicated in the murders by Gray], acting in common design, lured away from their group at the beach, the two unsuspecting children and took them into bushes in another parish with the clear, premeditated intention of committing criminal acts against them [and, in particular, Maleeka],” the court said further.

The bodies of the deceased children were later found in an advanced state of decomposition in fishing ponds.

In throwing out the appeal, the court ruled that Gray’s sentences “are to be reckoned as having commenced on 26 June 2020, the date on which they were imposed”.

Evidence disclosed during the matter, which was argued by Director of Public Prosecutions Claudette Thompson and Crown Counsels Nickeisha Young Shand and Kemar Setal on four dates between September 2023 and October 3, this year, showed that the two children on July 13, 2014, at about 2:00 pm went to One Man Beach, along Gloucester Avenue in St James, with four other children and a 19-year-old male. According to the Crown, while at the beach, the deceased children were seen speaking with Gray under an almond tree. It was later revealed that he invited the deceased children to get burger. They all left in the direction of the fast food restaurant but the children were never seen alive again.

Prosecutors said subsequent to their leaving, the other children who were present at the beach with the deceased children started searching for them but did not find them. As a result, a report was filed.

The bodies of the deceased children were found two days later, on July 15, 2014, at about 3:15 am in two different fishing ponds in Martha Brae, Trelawny. Omari’s body was discovered with the hands tied behind its back. From on-the-spot post-mortems conducted due to the fact that the bodies were in an advanced state of decomposition, it was revealed that Maleeka’s cause of death was asphyxiation while Omari’s cause of death was a stab wound to the chest.

A day later a black cellular phone that belonged to Omari was recovered from an individual in St Ann, who told cops that Gray had sold him the phone while he was at work in Discovery Bay in that parish. Closed-circuit television footage confirmed that it was, indeed, Gray who sold the phone to him. Gray was subsequently arrested at Paddy Beach in Port Maria, St Mary, on July 26, 2014.

Three days later, in a caution statement, he implicated himself and another man by the name of ‘Kemar’, in the murders. Gray confessed to leading Omari and Maleeka into the bushes where he claimed the man named ‘Kemar’ told Omari to take off his shirt and told Maleeka to take off her clothes. He further claimed that ‘Kemar’ roughed up the deceased children, started to tie them up and threw the boy into the pond, but then he heard a noise and thought people were coming and he threw the girl in the pond. Gray claimed also that Kemar gave him Omari’s phone, told him not to tell anyone, and then he fled the scene and went home.

However, on August 9, 2014, a sibling of one of the murdered children pointed out Gray at an identification parade as the man who spoke to them and took the deceased children from the beach. The then 26-year-old Gray was formally charged with two counts of murder. According to cops, when cautioned, he said nothing.