Roger Devard Bush has been sentenced to 33 years in prison for murdering his son in a “hail of bullets”, in an apparent jealous rage brought on by rumours that the young man was having an affair with his father’s partner.
Sitting in the Grand Court dock on Thursday, 8 Dec., watched by prison and police officers, and plainclothes detectives, Bush listened in silence with a smirk on his face.
Shaquille Bush, who was 24, was gunned down at his Miss Daisy Lane home in West Bay. In what has been described in court as a “horrific, brutal and cowardly killing”, he was shot at 15 times on the evening of 12 Nov. 2019.
When arriving at her sentence Justice Marlene Carter noted that the minimum sentence of 30 years in prison was not appropriate for Bush, who had forced “the prosecution to bear the full standard of proof” by denying the allegations.
During an earlier sentencing hearing, prosecutor Andrew Radcliffe, KC, noted that there were three aggravating factors that warranted an uplift in the sentences. The first was that Bush used an illegal firearm to commit the murder. That ‘mystery weapon’ has been linked to other killings and robberies in Cayman. It has never been recovered.
The second factor was that, after gunning down his son, Bush enlisted the help of a police officer to silence this then girlfriend – who would eventually give evidence as the Crown’s star witness.
The third aggravating factor was that, at the time of the killing, Bush was out on bail for an unrelated charge of assault.
When presenting arguments for mitigating circumstances, Bush’s lawyer Oliver Blunt, KC, said there was no evidence to suggest that the matter was premeditated, and that the murder was likely the result of an “unknown incident, that pushed Roger Bush over the edge”.
Justice Carter dismissed Blunt’s suggestion, stating that Bush had ample opportunity to present such a scenario before and during the trail. Instead he opted not to give evidence in his defence and did not rely on that argument at any stage of the proceedings.
“Given the circumstances of the case, I believe a term of 33 years of imprisonment is entirely appropriate,” said Carter, who also imposed a sentence of 10 years for the firearm, which is to run at the same time as the murder sentence.
Bush’s sentence was reduced by 541 days to reflect the time he has spent in custody since being arrested for the murder.
Although he was sentenced to 33 years, there is no guarantee that he will be released upon completion of the prison term. Instead, at that point, he will become eligible for parole.
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