BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – TWENTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD Kevon Hamilton, who was convicted on Thursday, November 29, 2018 for the murder of Ernest ‘Gray Patch’ Hendricks, was on Friday (Apr. 5) sentenced to life imprisonment.
According to a police communiqué, the Court commented that murder with a firearm places that type of murder into the worst of the worst. It [Court] argued that Hamilton’s seemly good character or attempt at rehabilitation whilst in prison could not overshadow what he did.
Hendricks was the proprietor of a small bakery and shop on the Island’s Main Road in Palmetto Point called Highway Superette.
At about 6:00 a.m. on Wednesday, June 24, 2015 while he was in the bakery section of his business establishment preparing his products for the day’s sale, a masked gunman entered and demanded money from him.
Reportedly, the businessman told the gunman that he had no money and, in defence, he threw an object at him. That action resulted in a brief struggle that ended with two shots being fired.
The bandit then made good his escape leaving Hendricks with a gunshot wound to his abdomen.
A neighbour, who claimed to have heard some of the verbal exchanges and the sounds of gunfire, ran to the bakery and found a bleeding Hendricks.
He reportedly alerted Hendricks’ son, who was within the residential part of the property, and also another neighbour, who together rushed the injured man to the JNF Hospital in the bus he uses to deliver his flour products.
Hendricks underwent emergency surgery and was warded at the medical institution, but succumbed to his injury on the morning of July 7, 2015.
On the same day that Hendricks was shot, a police communiqué stated that at about 5:30 p.m., Kevon Hamilton, formally of St. Paul’s Village but who at that time, was residing in West Farm, Farm, is that young man and he was taken into custody by officers of the Anti-Narcotics Unit during a Stop and Search Operation.
A search of his person revealed that he had one semi-automatic pistol with a magazine that had a number of matching rounds tucked in the waist of his pants.
Hamilton, the pistol and ammunition were taken into police custody and on the following day he was “formally arrested, charged and remanded to Her Majesty’s Prison”.
Speaking with this publication on Sunday, June 28, 2015, then Police Press and Public Relations Officer Inspector Lyndon David said that Hamilton was “being looked at as person of interest in connection with the Wednesday morning (Jun. 24) shooting of Ernest ‘Gray Patch’ Hendricks in Palmetto Point”.
Consequently, Hamilton was charged for the shooting-death of Ernest ‘Gray Patch’ Hendricks.
