Man gets nine more years in prison for killing pregnant mother

DEREK ACHONG

Se­nior Re­porter

A 25-year-old man from Las Lo­mas, who stabbed his preg­nant moth­er to death in 2019 be­cause he was an­gry over be­ing ne­glect­ed as a child, will have to serve al­most a decade longer in prison be­fore he is re­leased.

Michael Joseph was ini­tial­ly charged with his moth­er's mur­der but was al­lowed to plead guilty to the less­er of­fence of manslaugh­ter by provo­ca­tion based on a plea agree­ment re­cent­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed by his at­tor­ney, Michelle Ali, of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers' De­part­ment (PDD).

In de­cid­ing on the ap­pro­pri­ate sen­tence for Joseph, Jus­tice Sherene Mur­ray-Bai­ley ac­cept­ed the 27-year start­ing point agreed by the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) un­der the plea deal.

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a two-year re­duc­tion for mit­i­gat­ing cir­cum­stances, a one-third dis­count for his guilty plea, and de­duct­ing the time he spent on re­mand await­ing tri­al, Joseph was left with nine years, one month and 29 days to serve be­fore com­plet­ing his sen­tence.

Jus­tice Mur­ray-Bai­ley di­rect­ed that he be al­lowed to par­tic­i­pate in coun­selling, anger man­age­ment, sub­stance abuse, and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tive pro­grammes in prison be­fore his re­lease.

Joseph was ac­cused of mur­der­ing his 36-year-old moth­er, Rox­anne Mack-Kam­po, on Au­gust 24, 2019.

Joseph was born when Mack-Kam­po was 16 years old, and she left him in the care of her el­der­ly par­ents as his fa­ther was not ac­tive­ly in­volved in his up­bring­ing.

On the night of the in­ci­dent, Mack-Kam­po's sis­ter, Rod­ha, was awak­ened by loud screams com­ing from her sis­ter's bed­room.

When she en­tered, she saw the then 18-year-old Joseph lean­ing over his moth­er while re­peat­ed­ly at­tack­ing her with an ob­ject, which was lat­er iden­ti­fied as a kitchen knife.

Rod­ha chal­lenged Joseph, who at­tacked her with the knife be­fore run­ning away.

Joseph's five-year-old sis­ter was al­so in the room but es­caped un­scathed.

Mack-Kam­po was tak­en to hos­pi­tal for treat­ment but was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival. An au­top­sy re­vealed that she had been stabbed 42 times in the head and up­per body.

When Joseph was ar­rest­ed by po­lice, he con­fessed.

He claimed that he was an­gry with his moth­er for aban­don­ing him and show­ing more care and af­fec­tion for his younger sib­lings.

"I went in­to my mom's room and I start­ed to think and that is where all the frus­tra­tion and thing start to build up and then I ex­plode and strat to stab up every­thing," Joseph said.

He al­so ex­pressed deep re­gret for his ac­tions.

"I ask God, my lit­tle sis­ter, my aunt, and my moth­er for for­give­ness. And all I was ask­ing for is a sec­ond chance to make what I made wrong right," Joseph said.

Joseph claimed that he had a strained re­la­tion­ship with his moth­er and viewed his grand­par­ents, who raised him, as his par­ents.

He ad­mit­ted that he start­ed smok­ing mar­i­jua­na when he was 12 years old and con­sum­ing ex­ces­sive al­co­hol at 16, which led to him drop­ping out of school af­ter writ­ing Caribbean Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion Cer­tifi­cate (CSEC) ex­am­i­na­tions.

A pro­ba­tion of­fi­cer's re­port, con­sid­ered in sen­tenc­ing, re­vealed that Joseph was sent for psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tion but was not di­ag­nosed with any men­tal ill­ness.

Joseph was al­so charged with as­sault­ing and wound­ing his aunt, but Jus­tice Mur­ray-Bai­ley ruled that he had served the sen­tences for those crimes while on re­mand.

Joseph was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Sarah Julien. The DPP's Of­fice was rep­re­sent­ed by Ch­enelle Moe and Roger Hinds.