Mason found guilty of murder

KINGSTON, Jamaica – A High Court judge yesterday chastised a 32-year-old man for throwing the body of a British nurse “into a pit like garbage” before sentencing him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole before 25 years.Omar Reid, a mason, was found guilty of murdering Barbara Scott, 61, in March, and Justice Paulette Williams said she was struck by his utter lack of remorse for the crime to which he pleaded not guilty.“You and the deceased were friends; she goes missing from March 12 and you do nothing to help. The jury believed that you hit her so hard in the head it fractured her skull, threw her into the pit like garbage and disappeared for weeks, that is what I have to sentence you for,” she said.Reid’s attorney Kenneth McLeod, who asked the court to exercise the utmost leniency in passing sentence, said he would be appealing the matter.The court was told that Reid had informed the police that he hit Scott in her head during the course of a fight. However Reid, the father of a five-year-old son, denied the statement. Scott’s body was fished from a sewerage pit at her home in Somerton, St James, following a seven-day search. (CMC)