A mother of three children is set to be sentenced in the Home Circuit Court Thursday afternoon following her manslaughter conviction for the fatal stabbing of another woman.
Garfesha Smith’s sentencing hearing was moved from last December to today due to a mix-up with additional attorneys who are to join the matter.
Smith was convicted of the 2014 killing of Kadisha Banton. Banton was stabbed during a dispute with a group of persons at premises where she lived on Elm Crescent in Kingston 10.
According to reports, the police were drawn to a massive dispute at Elm Crescent where residents were trying to evict Banton from premises by her neighbours who claim she was a nuisance.
Whilst there, the police saw Banton with a knife, behaving boisterously and threatening persons to douse them with a corrosive substance. Banton began throwing liquid at persons in the yard, which caused an altercation in which she was stabbed.
Smith was charged with murder but at the end of her trial — which saw no less than three of the prosecution witnesses giving conflicting testimonies as to where at the premises the stabbing took place — she was convicted for manslaughter.
Two witnesses who claimed that they saw the murder were also inconsistent in that they were adamant that no one else but them could have witnessed the killing. One witness said she was facing the deceased when someone reached from behind her and inflicted the fatal wound on Banton.
There were inconsistencies in the discerption of the murder weapon as one police witness said that Banton was killed using a kitchen knife but the autopsy report said that Banton was killed using a ratchet knife, no murder weapon was produced at the trial nor forensic evidence.
