A woman who claimed that she fatally stabbed her on-and-off boyfriend in self-defence during a domestic dispute four years ago, has been sentenced to life imprisonment for his murder.
Following a judge-alone trial in December last year, Normalyn Dawes was found guilty of killing Oshane Coley on March 8, 2019.
Interestingly, Coley, before he was killed, had been convicted of murder in his absence on September 28, 2017 after he absconded bail during a trial.
In October of that year, he and two co-accused were sentenced to life imprisonment for the December 9, 2009 shooting death of a man – Craig Lewis – in St Catherine.
In relation to Coley’s killing, presiding High Court Judge, Justice Leighton Pusey, ordered Dawes to serve 15 years in prison before being eligible for parole consideration.
Prosecutors had argued that Dawes and Coley were in an on-and-off relationship marked by verbal and physical abuse, and an argument which started on March 7, 2019, escalated the following day.
Coley was later stabbed three times by Dawes inside her home.
He then ran from the home and collapsed on Union Street in Kingston.
He was later pronounced dead on arrival at a hospital.
At the trial, Dawes’ defence team argued that she killed in self-defence, as Coley was known to have been abusive to her and provocation existed in the case.
The woman had also contended that on the day of the murder, the deceased broke into her home through a window after he could not gain access to a door.
Dawes said during a struggle with Coley, she picked up a knife and stabbed him. She said he ran from the room and climbed over a wall.
Dawes claimed Coley was upset because of jealousy.
The judge, however, rejected her claims of self-defence based on the evidence that was mounted, including blood evidence which contradicted the woman’s account of the stabbing in her bedroom.
“Based on the (blood) spatter evidence, all three wounds were not inflicted while the deceased was standing in the same area; he was moving away from the scene of the first wound and two followed,” said the judge in his summation last year.
