Mechanic in Khanice Jackson murder case to know fate next week

Robert Fowler, the St Catherine mechanic who strangled 20 year-old accounting clerk Khanice Jackson and left her body in a ditch, will have to wait another week to hear his punishment for the crime.

Fowler gave police investigators a caution statement in the presence of his attorney detailing how he and Jackson got into an argument inside his car.

He stated that the argument was about money and described how he slid over to the back seat and used a rope to strangle the 20 year-old until froth came to her mouth and her body stopped shaking.

Fowler and Jackson were not involved in a romantic relationship, but he had promised her money to buy a gift for her boyfriend, prosecutors said, citing his caution statement.

He pleaded guilty to murder on March 8 this year.

His sentencing hearing commenced in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston on Thursday, but was adjourned for a week after which Justice Leighton Pusey is expected to impose a sentence.

Pusey said he needed time to ponder submissions made by prosecutors and Fowler's attorney Linden Wellesley.

Lead prosecutor Jeremy Taylor, in his submissions, recommended that along with the mandatory life sentence, Fowler be ordered to serve 20 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

Taylor urged the court to take note of the violent homicide rate in Jamaica and pointed to the confessed killer's attempts to conceal the crime by twice moving Jackson's body and dumping her personal belongings in Cross Roads, St Andrew.

But Wellesley, in his submissions, urged Justice Pusey to “temper justice with mercy”.

“We are like mendicants before you. I use the word mendicants because Mr Fowler has not wasted the court's time,” he said, referring to the discount given to convicts who enter a guilty plea early in their case.

Jackson's decomposing body was found in a ditch along Dyke Road, in St Catherine, on March 26, 2021, two days after family members reported her missing. 

- Livern Barrett

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