‘A ROUGH LIFE ’

Mother of five gets 18-year sentence

SERITA HOUSEN Blair had a tough childhood, often bouncing from one relative’s home to another, according to a close family friend. As an adult, she suffered mental and physical abuse at the hands of her now ex-husband.

This assessment of Housen Blair formed the basis of character evidence from Pastor Brendalin Little, during a sentencing hearing in the Home Circuit Court yesterday, where judgment was passed for the mother of five to spend close to two decades behind bars.

Pastor Little shared that she has known Housen Blair for 17 years, starting when they both lived in the west Kingston community of Tivoli Gardens.

“On several occasions I would witness the verbal abuse and the altercations. It made me feel bad to see how he was treating her,” said Little, making reference to Housen Blair’s once fractious relationship, in a plea for a reduction of her time in jail.

Now, Housen Blair is going to prison for nearly 20 years after admitting that she doused her common-law partner Kenton Brown with gasoline and set him on fire, resulting in his death, on May 27, 2017.

Justice Vaughn Smith, who presided over the sentencing hearing, gave her the mandatory life sentence and ordered that she serve 18 years before she becomes eligible for parole.

The punishment was in line with a plea agreement Housen Blair’s attorneys struck with prosecutors.

Pointing to one of the “aggravating” features of the crime, Justice Smith noted that the murder was “seemingly premeditated”.

“Mrs Blair apparently left home, having had

an argument with the deceased, and went to buy gasoline. Mrs Blair returned with the gasoline and then doused the deceased,” he said, summarising details of a confession the woman gave police investigators.

Among the evidence prosecutors Andrea Martin Swaby and Shanique Farquharson had lined up for her murder trial were transcripts of a deathbed interview Brown gave a police constable from his hospital bed hours after the latenight attack on March 23, 2017.

“Me ongle wake up fi find miself inna fire wid di woman stand up over me,” he recounted.

The interview was cut short after Brown, a father of two children aged seven and 10 years old at the time, began “shaking violently”, the constable said.

“Officer, take care a mi two pickney dem because dem nuh have nobody, ”said the cop, recounting Brown’s last words to him.

Brown succumbed to his injuries four days later.

Justice Smith said the court could not turn a blind eye to the fact that Housen Blair’s actions would have endangered the lives of Brown’s two children, who were inside the St Andrew home at the time.

But Pastor Little said she was “shocked” when she learned that her friend of 17 years pleaded guilty to murder.

“I did not know her as an aggressive person,” Little said, as she urged Smith to have “discretion and leniency”.

“She was under abuse from her marriage. She was under trauma. It has been a completely rough life for her,” the pastor added.

Housen Blair’s attorneys, citing a social enquiry report for their client, said her mother was 14 years old when she gave birth.

“She was a child of a child,” they commented.

Citing the physical and verbal abuse referenced by Little, the attorney said Housen Blair was trying to keep her family together.

“She was trying to give her family what she never had,” the attorney noted.

Housen Blair, dressed in full black, sobbed into a small rag as her attorney pleaded with Justice Smith to show mercy.