A then-14-year-old perpetrator who stabbed a 19-year-old man to death in Georgetown in late 2023, then issued violent threats against the victim’s family, has been sentenced to 11 years in custody, with his original sentence reduced under court rules governing juvenile offenders.
The offender, Tyshaun Spring, initially pled not guilty to the November 21, 2023 murder of Oneil Delicia, a fellow Georgetown local, during a January 2025 court proceeding. However, after testimony from Spring’s mother in May that year, his defense counsel Ronald Garrick requested a re-arraignment, at which point Spring changed his plea to guilty.
High Court Justice Rickie Burnett outlined the full sequence of events during the July 24 sentencing held in Kingstown, with witness identities protected by only being referenced via initials for safety. Per Justice Burnett’s summary, Delicia was gathering with friends in the backyard of a local residence around 6:30 p.m. on the day of the killing when Spring, accompanied by an associate, arrived by bicycle near the property, which sits adjacent to a Queen Street bar and eatery.
After Spring halted near a nearby home, Delicia stepped out onto the street from the residence. Spring dismounted his bicycle, propped it against a parked car, and immediately opened a verbal confrontation, asking Delicia, ‘Ah war you wah nuh?’ When Delicia challenged him to follow through on his threats, bystanders attempted to intervene, but Spring pulled a black-handled folding knife from his waistband, charged at Delicia, and stabbed him multiple times in a frenzied attack.
Following the assault, Spring remained on the street brandishing the bloody weapon, before a female witness confronted him, managed to disarm him, and threw the knife into a neighboring residential yard. She then left to arrange emergency transport for Delicia, who had crawled back up the steps to the porch before collapsing from heavy blood loss. Two bystander women attempted to stem the bleeding from a deep wound to Delicia’s right shoulder before rushing him to Georgetown’s Modern Medical and Diagnostic Centre.
Delicia’s brother, who found his sibling injured, grabbed a metal bar from a nearby vehicle and attempted to pursue Spring, but the teen managed to evade capture. The victim’s brother then proceeded to a local police station to file an official report. Responding Corporal Laborde retrieved the discarded bloody knife from the location provided by the witness, and officers found Delicia had been transferred to Georgetown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 8 p.m. that same evening.
Law enforcement located Spring near his grandmother’s home, where witnesses overheard him threatening the victim’s relatives, stating, ‘Ah one by one ah go deal with aryo.’ When approached, Spring began throwing glass bottles at the person who confronted him before police could take him into custody. Officers later recovered a black-and-grey backpack from the bed of an abandoned vehicle near the scene. Spring claimed he had sustained injuries during the incident, but a medical examination found no evidence of acute harm. The next day, he underwent a mandatory psychological evaluation as part of the legal process.
A post-mortem examination confirmed Delicia died from multiple sharp force injuries, including two gaping wounds measuring 9 centimeters and 18 centimeters respectively. A June 2025 psychiatric report prepared by Dr. Enyinne Williams revealed Spring admitted to drinking undiluted industrial rum on a regular basis, and had started daily heavy smoking by the age of 13. The evaluation found Spring had no diagnosable clinically significant psychiatric conditions.
A separate social inquiry report shed light on the longstanding tension between Spring and Delicia’s family, which dated back to their primary school years and continued through secondary education. The report noted Spring was raised primarily by his grandmother and aunt, and was already violating a court-ordered curfew at the time of the killing – he was required to be at home, but instead traveled to his grandmother’s residence that evening. Spring’s time at Georgetown Secondary School was marked by repeated physical violence and disciplinary action. Community members described him as a deeply troubled child with no consistent adult guidance, who was frequently involved in street fights, was hostile to the public, and struggled with persistent distress.
For Delicia’s family, the loss has been catastrophic. Delicia’s mother told the court her family has never recovered from the killing, leaving all members grappling with severe long-term emotional and psychological harm. She stated she has not been able to accept her son’s death, and often looks at photos of him on her phone to cope with the constant grief.
In determining the final sentence, Justice Burnett noted the four core goals of sentencing: retribution, deterrence, crime prevention, and rehabilitation. He applied sentencing rules specifically for offenders under 18 years of age, which prioritize encouraging accountability and social reintegration over punitive custody, and require that custodial sentences be used only as a last resort for the most severe juvenile offenses. Justice Burnett ruled the brutal nature of the killing warranted a fixed-term custodial sentence.
The judge set an initial starting sentence of 30 years, a notional equivalent of a life sentence for an adult perpetrator. He identified three aggravating factors: the attack was carried out in full public view, it was unprovoked, and Spring committed the murder while already subject to a court-ordered curfew. No mitigating factors related to the offense itself were found, so three years were added to the initial term, bringing it to 33 years. Mitigating factors related to the offender – Spring had no prior criminal record and retained potential for rehabilitation – led to a five-year reduction, bringing the sentence to 28 years.
Spring received a full one-third sentence discount for his guilty plea, cutting 9 years and 4 months from the term, followed by an additional deduction of 2 years, 1 month and 17 days for time he had already spent in pre-trial detention, bringing the sentence to 16 years, six months and 13 days. Per mandatory practice directions requiring juvenile sentences be capped at two-thirds of the term an adult would receive for the same crime, Justice Burnett further reduced the sentence to its final term of 11 years imprisonment.