‘I saw Mommy stand up and was screaming’
Child’s statement admitted into evidence in JDF lieutenant’s murder case
LIEUTENANT Kyodia Burnett, the Jamaica Defence Force (JDF) physiotherapist who was said to be suffering from a severe mental condition in the months leading up to when he stabbed his attorney-at-law wife Nordraka to death in December 2018, on Tuesday bowed his head and closed his eyes as the statement of his then eightyear-old daughter detailing the last time she heard her mother’s voice was read out on day two of his trial.
“My mother and father would quarrel a lot. I counted the times that they quarrelled and it was 12 times. One time when Daddy and Mommy were quarrelling I saw Mommy crying. When I saw Mommy crying I felt like crying too,” the primary school student said in her evidence, which was among several agreed statements placed into the records of the court in the matter being presided over by Justice Dale Palmer in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston.
She said in the penultimate quarrel on Wednesday, December 12, 2018, the couple was in their bedroom at their West Kirkland Heights, St Andrew, apartment.
“I heard Mommy was shouting at Daddy, then I heard Daddy talking but I did not hear Mommy responding. Early Thursday morning I went to look for Mommy and Daddy. I saw their bedroom door open and I saw Mommy’s two legs first then I saw Mommy lying on the bed. I saw something red on the bed, the red thing that I saw on the bed looks like blood,” she said in her statement.
“I saw Mommy stand up and was screaming, I then saw Mommy fall down on the floor and I saw my Daddy lift up Mommy and put her on the bed. When I saw Daddy lift up Mommy and put her on the bed, he walked to the bedroom door and closed it; he was in the room. When Daddy locked himself in the room I went back into my room. I hugged my little sister and went to bed but I could not sleep,” she said further.
In the statement, which was read into the records of the court by a registrar, she told the court that at dawn when their landlord knocked at their front door they discovered that the door to their parents’ room was still locked.
The child said she was then taken to an aunt’s home along with her baby sister and then taken to counselling. She said she then learnt that her father was in the hospital and her mother was dead.
“I miss my mother very much. When I saw her lying on the bed and I saw the blood, I thought she was having her period. I never thought that she was dead, I love my mother,” she said, describing her mother as loving and playful and her father as loving and kind.
On Tuesday, Burnett, clad in a peach shirt and black dress pants, listened glumly to his daughter’s statement, at times bowing his head and closing his eyes momentarily.
Also on Tuesday a police officer, who was one of two to respond to the distress call of the Burnetts’ landlord, said he visited the couple’s address upon being told by her that she feared something had happened to her tenants.
“It was the norm for her to see them and she knocked on the door and didn’t hear them,” the cop said in his statement.
He said, upon calling the couple’s names and receiving no response he pried off the door to their bedroom and saw the body of the 34-yearold attorney lying on her back with a red substance pooling in the region of her chest. He said Burnett was sitting in a corner of the room “staring at the body of the woman on the bed”.
The cop said, after enquiring of Burnett if he was armed, he told him to stand and walked towards him. He said the army man, when asked what had happened, replied, “I killed her; the voices in my head told me to.” He said when he cautioned Burnett, he again repeated the words.
A post-mortem report, which formed part of the evidence, said the attorney had signs of recent injury to her head, neck and torso and also had blood in her mouth. Of the 15 stab wounds to her body, four were defensive wounds, mainly to the hands. Several of the wounds, according to the examiner, tapered and had a “fish tail appearance” at their ends.
Three witnesses from the Jamaica Defence Force, where Burnett was employed at the time of the murder, said before the killing the army man had begun to exhibit signs of extreme withdrawal.
A former supervisor of Burnett’s said he would “lock himself into his office for long periods and would only come out when he had assessments to perform”.
The woman, an army major, said, after an approximately two-week absence he was relieved of his substantive duties. She said she was told by the then force medical officer that he would be undergoing treatment and would not be able to carry out his duties. She said when he returned he was not allowed to see patients but was given administrative duties.
She said in early December 2018 when a sessional physiotherapist was hired Burnett “became unhappy” that he was being replaced.
She said the lieutenant, during a meeting with her, told her of his “history of depression” which, he said, was being treated several ways, including with a “faith-based method”.
“He appeared to be frustrated with the fact that the treatment wasn’t working. He stated that he was concerned about his job security, and he said his family had said to him that he should not say anything to me about his condition,” she told the court, adding that Burnett had been ordered to see a clinical psychologist at the army’s wellness centre and report back to her.
She said a day after Burnett told her he had met with the doctor and the issue was being resolved, she received the report that he had killed his wife.
An army captain, who had been hired alongside Burnett, told the court that she had known him from his days at Cornwall Regional Hospital and had seen changes in him after he returned from a two-week vacation.
“He became very withdrawn. He spent most of his time in the office,” she said. According to the captain, when she questioned him he complained of being tired and attributed it to having to wake up early because of where he lived in order to take his children to school before getting to work.
She said, in noticing that he missed a day at work, she messaged him to enquire, to which he replied that he “was under the weather”. A day later she also received the horrifying news.
Tuesday, the JDF’S medic, in giving testimony, said Burnett was, in 2017, referred to a psychiatrist for specialist management.
She, however, said the army man’s wife was “very opposed to the need for the referral for urgent psychiatric management”.
“She questioned the diagnosis; she was always questioning which other individuals would need to be notified in the chain of command. I had to be firm in my recommendation and course of action,” she said, noting that even after Burnett was admitted to Kingston Public Hospital for psychiatric management his wife still questioned the need for in-patient admission and was actively seeking his early discharge.”
She said Nordraka also “stressed that she did not want other senior persons in the JDF to know about his diagnosis and expressed concern about the future impactions for his employment”, the army doctor said.
According to the medic, so dire was Burnett’s state that she advised Nordraka to remove herself from the marital home with the children for a period and spend some time with her parents.
She said she had given the instruction to the wife as Burnett was not in any condition to follow that instruction.
The medic said she also emphasised to Burnett that he should be compliant with his medication. He agreed and “was keen to take them”. She, however, noted that on the day of the murder when she visited the apartment she observed psychiatric medication for Burnett, which should have been taken already.
The doctor, who said she visited the home right after the incident, described the army man as she saw him then.
“His eyes looked very wild, he was staring blankly and on occasion I would stand right in front of him, beckoning, and he would not acknowledge my presence and he would be looking around as if responding to some stimuli that weren’t there. After I repeatedly tried to get his attention he looked at me and I asked him what happened and all he said it was ‘The voice ma’am, the voices ma’am.’”
She said it was immediately recommended that the lieutenant be taken to Bellevue Hospital for emergency psychiatric management.
The army man, who is out on bail, has to reside at a prescribed location as part of the condition of his bail bond.
The matter resumes today at 10:00 am when his mother is expected to take the stand.