of murdered returning resident Delroy Walker to the combined 50-plus years’ worth of sentences handed down on Tuesday to convicted murderers Dwayne Barton and Davion Edwards.

Walker, who left the island when he was 11 years old, was savagely murdered in his Tower Isle, St Mary, dream home in April 2018 following a disagreement between him and Barton over work done on the property. Barton, returning to the house later with Edwards in tow, during a physical fight, “possibly inflicted the fatal wound to his chest”, according to prosecutors.

According to the prosecution, while the wound to Walker’s chest was the stab that actually killed the returning resident, he had 19 other wounds — which were not fatal — to his face, head, fingers, hand and knees. According to the evidence, Edwards participated in the killing.

Tuesday, Barton, the main aggressor, was sentenced to 27 years and nine months with eligibility for parole after serving 15 years, while Edwards was sentenced to 22 years and nine months with eligibility for parole after serving 13 years.

Steve Walker, Delroy’s brother, who along with four other family members travelled from the United Kingdom and were joined by five relatives here for the hearing, told the Jamaica Observer that while his family viewed the sentencing and conviction of the men as a “success”, the void created from the killing of their brother, who was considered “the magnet” of the family, loomed larger.

“Personally, it’s emptiness in the sense that my brother loved Jamaica, this was his place, he should have been here. So I feel empty. We got all these things, we can stand up and applaud, but I feel empty. My brother was not old, he was not ill, and he did not have an accident and he is not here because those two men went into his house and got to him. So that’s how I feel, empty, but with justice and success,” Walker told the Observer. (Jamaican Observer)