CRUZ BAY — The St. John community will never know definitively who the primary killer was in the high-profile murder case of Pennsylvania native Jamie Cockayne.
That’s because his convicted murderer, 32-year-old Jahlil Ward of Gifft Hill, who wanted to testify against one of his two convicted accomplices, was shot to death in a hail of bullets nine months ago.
Ward’s body was found slumped over the front seat of a car near the Pine Peace basketball court in St. John on February 4.
Cockayne had spent a few months on St. John in 2007 waiting for British Virgin Islands officials to clear his paperwork before taking a sailing instructor job on Virgin Gorda.
Cockayne had recently celebrated his 21st birthday when he had a run-in with Ward and two other St. John men one summer night in 2007. Bored with spending nights at home, he decided to go out drinking, his mother said.
After leaving a bar, Cockayne kicked the bumper of a Jeep that belonged to Anselmo Boston’s girlfriend, police reports said. Ward then found himself in a fight with Boston, Ward and Kamal Thomas outside of the Front Yard Bar in Cruz Bay shortly after midnight on June 19, 2007.
During two trials, prosecutors alleged that the three men followed Cockayne up the street from the bar to the area near Fashion Palace in Estate Enighed where they beat and stabbed him to death before fleeing.
Cockayne suffered eight stab wounds including one to the femoral artery and he bled to death on the Cruz Bay street before emergency responders could arrive.
St. Croix native Boston and Georgia native Thomas were arrested in late 2007 and Ward was corralled by the VIPD on June 27, 2008.
All three defendants faced a jury in a joined trial in October 2008. Jurors in that trial found Ward guilty of first-degree murder, third-degree assault and weapons charges. The jury acquitted Boston and Thomas of murder, but found both men guilty of assault and weapons charges.
“Me and this guy got involved in the argument that night,” Boston said. “That’s about it. I’m a hardworking man, and I am accused of something I didn’t do.”
In July 2009, Superior Court Judge Brenda Hollar tossed Ward’s murder conviction because prosecutors had not shared a piece of evidence. Hollar overturned the convictions of Boston and Thomas in September 2009 after learning that Cockayne’s family had paid several witnesses who testified during the trial.
The second time around, Hollar ordered Thomas and Boston’s trial to be separate from Ward’s trial. In March 2010, Boston and Thomas faced their second jury, which convicted both men of third-degree assault and weapons charges again.
Hollar sentenced each man in November 2010 to about eight years in jail. They are currently serving those sentences.
Ward faced his second jury in December 2009 and that time around he was convicted of second-degree murder. In July 2010, Hollar threw out that conviction on grounds that prosecutors had prevented a defense witness from returning to the territory to stand trial.
Instead of facing a third trial in January 2012, Ward accepted a plea deal of one count of voluntary manslaughter, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years. Ward used what is known as an Alford Plea, which allowed him to submit a guilty plea in court while still maintaining his innocence.
Hollar handed down the maximum sentence of 10 years in prison for the St. John man in the Superior Court of the Virgin Island.
Ward’s sentence included time served and he was ordered to pay $10,000 for Cockayne’s funeral expenses.
Before announcing Ward’s sentence, Cockayne’s parents Bill and Jeanie Cockayne, his bother Jeff and uncle, Peter Goetz, gave impact statements to the judge.
To date, no one has been charged in the February murder of Jahlil Ward.
Boston and Thomas can never be tried again for the murder of Cockayne because of the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment in the U.S. Constitution.
Each man served time in prison on assault and weapons charges stemming from the murder of Cockayne.