Teen killer put on probation for 'brazen' 2009 murder

A 15-year-old who got with the wrong crowd and killed a man, execution-style, by shooting him in the head at a busy health centre in 2009, has been put under supervision for three years after the judge sentencing him said she satisfied he had paid a heavy price for his“brazen” act.

Marvin Alexander, now 29, was sentenced by Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds on Monday and ordered to be released. He will report to the probation officers’ department for three years and continue his tutorship of the prison’s music band. If he fails to abide by the instructions of the probation officers, he will return to court for sentencing.

The judge said she was satisfied Alexander had reformed every aspect of his life as she referred to the various reports prepared ahead of her sentencing.

In November, last year, Alexander pleaded guilty to the murder of Lennox Bellerand, 23, on November 12, 2009, at the Success/Laventille Health Centre. Bellerand was shot in the head as he waited with his mother to visit a dentist at the health centre.

When he pleaded guilty, the agreed facts were read out by prosecutor Ambay Ramkellawan who said the health centre was busy at 8 am. Bellerand’s mother saw Alexander, whom she knew, walk past her and put a gun to her son’s head, shooting him. She grabbed Bellerand’s and Alexander’s jerseys, bawling out to the killer, “That is my son, boy.”

Bellerand then was shot again and fell forward, landing on his face between the chairs in the health centre. Bellerand’s mother saw when her son’s killer walked out of the health centre, giving the gun to another man who raised it in an attempt to fire but was rebuked by a nurse who shouted there were children at the institution.

Both ran off. Alexander was arrested at a house in John John a few weeks later and denied any involvement in the killing. Alexander was identified at a verification exercise.

Ramkellawan said the autopsy described the gunshot wound as an “execution-type wound.”

In a plea of mitigation, Alexander’s attorney, public defender Delica Helwig-Robertson, urged the court to temper justice with mercy as there was a “plethora” of mitigating factors to warrant a significant downward adjustment to any starting-point sentence the court had in mind.

She said this was not just a case of Alexander saying he was sorry. In a letter, he wrote himself and read out at the hearing, Alexander said he took full responsibility for his actions. He said he, every day, he reminded himself of the trauma he put Bellerand’s family through.

Helwig-Robertson said, in this case, the clanging of the prison gates behind a boy had deterred him from reoffending.

“This is not just a case where he is saying, ‘I am sorry.’” She also went through his accomplishments at the Youth Training and Rehabilitation Centre and the maximum security prison since his incarceration, which included distinctions in music theory from the Royal College of Music.

She said that the killing was committed in youth, but told the judge she was sentencing the man before her.

“I am sure you are wondering how a 15-year-old would walk into a health centre and kill a man, execution style. This is not an excuse…but here you had a frustrated young boy who got into the wrong company.”

He said Alexander told her the circle he got into, when demands are made, you do it.

“He intimated he was doing the dirty work of someone.”

In sentencing him on Monday, Ramsumair-Hinds referenced Alexander’s current age considering she was sentencing him for an act he committed as a teen.

She said from age 11, he faced a lot of challenges when his parents separated and his father died a year later. He dropped out of school, was sent to St Michael’s Home for Boys for two months by the court, and spent six months in Tobago working before returning to Trinidad.

He then began socialising with people in the community, drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana daily.

He was also lured into the gang culture and said he had been given a gun by a gang leader and the instructions to kill, the judge said.

“At 15, with an underlying fear for his safety and his family, he didn't believe he could say no and did what he was told.”

She said there was no escaping the “glaring reality” that if he was an adult, Alexander would have been facing the death penalty.

Ramsumair-Hinds acknowledged that the term children being beyond control was no longer used in the criminal justice system. Instead, now they are considered to be in need of supervision.

She wondered what difference would it have made in Alexander’s life had he been treated as in need of supervision, instead of beyond control.

The judge also admitted that one aspect of the sentencing was the need to send a message to potential offenders.

“How can a sentence of this prisoner achieve that? How does the court send a message to at-risk children and young adults that they can say no to the allure and pressure of gang membership?

“It is unfair to hang this burden on his (Alexander’s) neck.”

The judge had one request for the media that they not report the names of Alexander’s relatives with whom he will live and work.

Alexander was also represented by public defender Tonya Thomas.