Convict seeks redemption after double murder – Master baker behind bars

WARM light filters into the Maximum Security Prison (MSP) bakery, where 12 inmates and their orderly, Jalon Robinson, shape a mound of dough into balls.

The earthy smell of warm hops fills a separate room, where sheets of freshly baked bread cool.

Pulling, twisting and rolling all that dough looks like arm-numbing work, but Robinson smiles and says, “It builds shoulders.”

“Does it taste as good as the hops bread you buy in a bakery?” I ask.

“Better,” he smiles with his trademark charisma.

The hat that keeps his long dreadlocks piled high on his head passes for a chef’s hat.

Robinson wakes at 2 am every day and heads to the bakery. As the bakery’s orderly, he organises the space, visits the storeroom, ensures the bakery has all the ingredients it needs for the week and supervises Spanish-speaking inmates who work under him.

“They know a little English. I know a little Spanish. Together it works, ” he says.

Prison officers recommended Robinson work in the kitchen on July 21, 2024, three days after he was found guilty of two counts of felony murder. This means a death occurred, intentionally or unintentionally, during a violent crime.

First, Robinson washed wares. He then graduated to prepping vegetables for meals and found his place in the bakery, where about 9,000 hops breads were baked daily for the inmate population of about 1,800 inmates.

“I love making sweetbread when we get the chance. Raisins, green, red and yellow dried fruits make it pretty,” Robinson says.

Here, Robinson’s dreams for the future take shape, though he never envisioned life in prison or a bakery.

Born in Guyana, Robinson grew up with his grandmother. At age eight, he joined his mother in Trinidad. His father worked in construction and migrated to the US. Robinson has three brothers and sisters. He attended Malabar Government School and Five Rivers Junior Secondary School. He quit school in form two.

“Then I worked in construction and sold marijuana on the block. My mom and stepfather fought all the time. Home was not a loving place. I was always angry. I hung out with toxic friends, smoked marijuana and drank a lot.”

Robinson pauses. “But I enjoyed buying groceries and cooking pelau for the neighbours. I think I was always a giving person.”

He had a girlfriend.

“She was trouble,” he laughs.

The night he landed in prison never escapes him. Drunk and high, Robinson and another man confronted two women over drugs.

News reports from 2012 stated, that Robinson and Anderson Springer were arrested hours after the murders of sisters Kim and Salisha Griffith and later appeared before an Arima magistrate charged with the double murder and other related charges.

They were charged with killing the women between June 17 and June 19, 2012, after they broke into the home of Kim Griffith, at Griffith Lane, Carapo, Arima.

Their throats were slit and their house was burnt.

“It wasn’t a gang thing. I didn’t belong to a gang. This was personal, an anger thing.”

Tears well up in Robinson’s eyes.

“Was there a gun involved?” I ask.

“A cutlass,” he says.

The crime had witnesses and happened about midnight. By 5 am the alcohol and marijuana wore off. Robinson returned home. The full impact of his actions hit him.

“My sister was on her way to school. I kissed her goodbye. I kissed my mom, took a chair to the yard, sat down and waited for the police. People rushed to me and said, ‘Run!’ Police arrested me sitting in my yard.”

At 23, Robinson landed in Remand Prison, arguably the worst prison in the country. Overcrowded cells with no running water and few opportunities for programmes offered no hope.

“Prison was a wake-up call. I felt like I was taken out of drunkenness and put in a sober state,” says Robinson.

He threw himself into Seventh-Day Adventist, Catholic, Baptist and Pentecostal church programmes.

“I am a rasta – not Rasta City (the gang), a real rasta,” he says.

He joined the Remand Prison choir.

“Once, I went to the Archbishop’s house to sing,” he says.

With the help of caring officers, Robinson earned a school leaving certificate. In 2018, he joined the Wishing for Wings/Prisons debate team.

“I was the interrogator for Remand Prison,” he says in a deep voice that commands attention. He asked tough questions.

An officer in charge of the debate programme noted Robinson’s impact and considered moving him to another debate team so he would have more opportunities for education. Robinson refused. When asked, he remembered that conversation.

“We were the underdogs of the prison system, and coming along fine in the debates. Everyone always said, ‘Nothing good comes out of Remand Prison,’ and our team wanted to prove everyone wrong. I didn’t want to abandon the team. I don’t run,” he says.

Unexpectedly, the Remand Prison debate team shot up to third place out of ten prisons. Inmates rallied around the team, became invested in the preparations, and discussed debates rather than their crimes.

In 2021, Robinson ended up in MSP during the covid19 pandemic when renovations began at Remand Prison. Three years later, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced.

“The judge started with 35 years. The sentence broke down to the 15 years I served plus nine years and six months. “I was humble with the sentence,” says Robinson.

With good behaviour, he could be released in February 2030.

Robinson thinks of all he’s learned in prison.

“Me not knowing myself caused me to end up here. Prison is the avenue where I found myself, but what it took to get here, I’m not proud of. I’m sorry it came at such a cost. People lost their loved ones because of me. When you commit a crime, you hurt a lot of people – including your own family.”

Robinson says the biggest challenge in life is to conquer yourself.

“We get caught up in peer pressure and the need to fit in somewhere. We feel the world is responsible for what happens to us, but it always comes down to yourself. Once there’s a crowd around, ego comes in the picture and fights escalate out of control.”

He says much of the problem is how young men see themselves.

“We set up this tough image but it doesn’t suit who we really are. Everyone just wants love and acceptance.”

“Was there any way to avoid that night?” I ask.

“If I ask every person how we could have avoided prison, I think the majority would say the same thing: think. When you weigh the cost of your actions, crime doesn’t make sense. Plenty people don’t think about what people do to get the things they have, and they just think they can go and take things. It’s hard to think when you’re angry, but we have to try. We have to avoid toxic mentoring – inside and outside of prison.”

Robinson says he doesn’t lime much. He works from 3 am to at least 1 pm, seven days a week. He reads in rare, spare moments, and mostly enjoys novels by James Patterson and Robert Ludlum, who write mysteries and psychological thrillers. At 4 pm, he settles to read his bible and falls asleep around 7 pm.

“When I stopped smoking (marijuana) six years ago, I became a better person,” he says. “Marijuana was a getaway, but I had to face myself.”

He has learned that “life is more valuable than you think.”

A tattoo of a gun covers his left forearm. I ask for the story of the tattoo.

He says, “I thought the gun was cool. After a time, I didn’t like it so I added two hearts coming out of the gun.”

Robinson says he will never forget the crimes he committed and the lives he took. He’s 37 now, and that night never fades from his thoughts. It’s a reminder of dark days, but the future holds promise.

“I think about having my own bakery in Guyana, where I was born, and showing the workers all I have learned baking hops bread, dinner rolls, sweetbread, sausage and currants rolls. I want to bake cakes and get a certificate in baking, but I can’t stay in a bakery all day. I will learn welding. Guyana is a growing country. I want to help.”

Amber light filters through the bakery. Here, glimmers of hope slowly rise. The surreal scene with the comforting smell of hops bread appears like a sepia photograph void of nostalgia.

Editor's note: Debbie Jacob is the founder of the Wishing for Wings Foundation and supervised the prison debate teams.