Nikita Noel was found dead in Hanover.
Forty-two-year-old construction worker Omar Green, who pleaded guilty to the gruesome rape and murder of nine-year-old Nikita Noel in Hanover earlier this year, was sentenced to life imprisonment when he appeared in the Hanover Circuit Court on Monday.
Green will have to serve at least 50 years and seven months before qualifying for parole on the murder charge, and 43 years and seven months before qualifying for parole on the rape charge.
The sentences are to run concurrently.
Reports are that on February 1, the little girl left home for school at approximately 7am.
When she didn’t return home from school later that evening at the usual time, her mother became concerned and went to the Lucea Police Station and reported her missing.
A subsequent search in the community by police, with the aid of residents, led to the discovery of Nikita’s body in bushes at the side of the road some distance from her house, at approximately 7:30pm.
A post-mortem revealed that Nikita was strangled.
Green was subsequently taken into custody as a person of interest and was charged after the results of forensic evidence confirmed that he had raped the child, the police said.
The fourth grade student’s murder is alleged to have stemmed from a domestic dispute between her mother and Green.
The two adults were said to have been in an on-and-off relationship.
