Best to spend 22 more years behind bars for killing teen

Convicted murderer Anderson Rodney Omar Best will spend the next 22 years behind bars for killing a teenager.

Best, of Kings Court, Lodge Road, Christ Church, had been charged with murdering Justin Trevor Jean, 17, formerly of Kingsland Terrace, Christ Church, on August 30, 2011.

In June 2022, a unanimous jury found him guilty.

Giving Best a starting sentence of 30 years in the No. 2 Supreme Court earlier this week, Justice Randall Worrell did not adjust the starting point after considering the aggravating and mitigating factors of the offence.

A deduction was made for the 1 753 days Best has already spent on remand along with 1 170 days for the 13-year delay. The judge told him he had 8 027 days left to serve his sentence.

During the trial, the court heard that Best, who was 28 years old at the time, told police he stabbed Jean twice after the teen charged at him.

His statement outlined that he and others were socialising on the road in Kings Court when Jean walked through the middle of the group, “slow down and look in my face with he face vex”.

Best told police: “I ask him why he looking at me so cruel like me and he in something. Me and you never had nothing, no exchange of words or nothing.”

He said Jean cursed him and told him: “If you was not looking at me, you wouldn’t know I looking at you”.

Best’s statement continued: “I tell he: ‘Big man, you now walk through the middle of we and look in my face like something wrong; you could walk around.’  I then tell him I don’t want to get into anything with he, ‘cause you can’t deal with me.”

He said he observed Jean had a cell phone in his left hand and his right hand was in his pocket.

“I step back a little and he came forward to me like he want to fight,” Best continued. “I did not move and he come ‘pon me. I ask him what vibes he ‘pon. He tek out a brown handle knife and we begin to struggle with one another in the road. We continue wrestling until we get up by he girl. I manage to get the knife out he hand and hold he telling he: ‘Big man, why you don’t be cool.” He then said he kicked off Jean and opened the knife.

Jean charged at him and he stepped back and stabbed him, Best said.

“He stop and bore me again. I stab he a second time . . . . He ran off,” his statement read.

Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC prosecuted the case, while Senior Counsel Angella Mitchell-Gittens represented Best.