EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Ex-COP Comments On Sentencing of Son’s Killer

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PHOTOS: Former Commissioner of Police Austin Williams

By: Precious Mills

BASSETERRE, St.Kitts– Former Commissioner of Police Austin Williams, during an exclusive interview with this media house, commented on this week’s sentencing of his son’s accused killer saying it “brings a sense of closure to the matter.”

At the High Court on Monday 10th July, 25-year-old Jahari ‘Baddie’ Bart received a life imprisonment judgement for the April 2011 murder of 27-year-old Laustin Jamie ‘Big Ship’ Williams, the son of the then sitting top cop.

PHOTO: Laustin Jamie ‘Big Ship’ Williams

Remembering his son, he told: “He was just a really happy fellow. He was a really great son and a really great father.”

His deceased son is survived by two children, a boy and a girl, from separate relationships.

Williams said his 8-year-old grandson son, the younger of the two, is around him “almost every day so I get a little bit of comfort.”

Asked if he was in court when the sentence was handed down by resident High Court Judge Justice Trevor Warde QC, he informed that he had not been going to court often and so he did not know that the matter was coming up.

“No. I didn’t know sentencing was coming up. I didn’t even go to court much either…”

As to how he found out about the sentence, he informed: “My wife told me she about heard it…”

Austin William’s son, whom he shared with his wife Laura, was killed while he (Austin) was overseas on a business trip.

Jahari ‘Baddie’ Bart

When asked about what it was like getting the news then, he first said: “It is such a sad story that don’t even want to talk about.”

He however, spoke further by sharing: “It’s just that …I was away on business… somebody had to come give me a message from somebody else …so maybe I was like the last to know. That was the hardest part…”

On the night in question- Monday 4th April 2011- Laustin Jamie Williams was in the company of three other men playing cards at Buckley’s Estate yard in Basseterre when a gunman fatally attacked him, hitting him multiple times about his body.

He was pronounced dead on the scene by the district medical officer following that incident which took place at about 9:30 P.M.

No one else sustained injuries.

Williams was a popular disc jockey of Unstoppable Sounds.

In a news report, WINNFM indicated that Justice Warde, who was not the trial judge in the case, said from what he had gleaned from the documentation and other material on the trial, the shooting was planned and reckless.

According to that media house, Bart, who was represented by attorney Chesley Hamilton, was convicted in July 2016 on the third trial attempt, after the first trial was declared a mistrial and the second ended in a hung jury.

Bart was 19 years of age when he was charged with Williams’ murder.