A chilling case of brutal homicide has concluded in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, where 35-year-old Deron Franklyn has been sentenced to 40 years in prison for the fatal chopping murder of Alwill Franklyn, which unfolded in Dickson Village in late July 2021.
Though Deron Franklyn repeatedly maintained his claim of innocence throughout the entire legal process, a 12-member jury ultimately returned a guilty verdict following a full evidentiary trial. The conviction was secured in large part due to a critical piece of forensic evidence: a cross pendant recovered from the murder scene that was matched to a photo of Franklyn wearing the identical pendant, found as the screensaver on his own cell phone.
The details of the crime, laid out by Justice Rickie Burnett during the July 24 sentencing hearing at the Kingstown High Court, paint a grim picture of the night of the killing. On July 28, 2021, the deceased’s sister, identified only by the initials I.F. to protect her privacy, saw Alwill at their shared residential yard shortly before 10 p.m. and did not encounter Deron at that time. Roughly an hour later, I.F. was woken by a disturbance, and upon investigation found the back door of her mother’s home on the same property ajar. Entering the home, she discovered Alwill lying unconscious in a pool of blood in the living room, still groaning from his injuries. She immediately placed a call for emergency assistance, and an ambulance was dispatched to the scene.
Local law enforcement, led by Police Constable Roy Carl De Freitas of the Georgetown Police Station’s Criminal Investigations Department, responded to the report of a chopping attack by 10:10 p.m. When officers arrived at the property, they found the home completely dark, and located the victim suffering from dozens of deep penetrating wounds. A district medical officer soon pronounced Alwill Franklyn dead at the scene.
During initial crime scene processing, responding officers recovered a live .38 caliber ammunition round, two broken fragments of a cutlass handle, and a silver chain holding a cross pendant, which would later become the key to breaking the case. After identifying Deron Franklyn as a person of interest, investigators arrested him and seized his mobile phone, though a search of his home turned up no direct physical evidence linking him to the killing. A post-mortem autopsy conducted by forensic officials confirmed that the victim’s cause of death was exsanguination from multiple severe chop wounds, with a total of 19 distinct wounds counted on the victim’s body.
It was not until three days after the killing that investigators made their critical breakthrough. During an initial interview on July 31, officers noticed that Franklyn’s phone screensaver was a photo of him wearing the exact cross pendant recovered from the crime scene. After obtaining a formal search warrant, investigators conducted a full digital forensic analysis of the device, and when Franklyn was re-interviewed in the presence of his then-counsel Grant Connell, he exercised his right to remain silent.
Ahead of sentencing, a full social inquiry report was compiled to assess the defendant’s background and potential for rehabilitation. The report documented that Franklyn, a father of three sons, had grown up in the care of his aunt I.F. in Dickson Village. He passed the national Common Entrance Examination and earned admission to the prestigious St. Vincent Grammar School, but was forced to drop out in Form 3 due to unmanageable financial constraints that pushed him to enter the workforce early. He later re-enrolled at Georgetown Secondary School to complete his education, and went on to hold jobs as a mechanic and maintenance worker, as well as a relief male attendant at the national Milton Cato Memorial Hospital.
The report noted that while Franklyn had documented substance abuse issues with alcohol and marijuana, he also attended church regularly, had participated in counselling services during his pre-sentencing remand, and was described by community members as even-tempered, non-violent, intelligent, and well-liked by neighbors. The assessing social worker concluded that Franklyn remained a viable candidate for rehabilitation.
In crafting the final sentence, Justice Burnett set an initial starting term of 40 years in prison. He ruled that the extreme brutality of the crime – specifically the 19 separate chop wounds that left the victim suffering before death – was a significant aggravating factor that warranted a three-year upward adjustment to the sentence. Finding no other mitigating circumstances related to the offense itself, the judge then turned to the offender’s personal circumstances. He ruled that the finding of potential for rehabilitation, as outlined in the social inquiry report, was a substantial mitigating factor that offset the aggravating personal circumstances, warranting a three-year downward adjustment that returned the total sentence to 40 years.
Following the ruling, Franklyn was credited with 3 years, 7 months and 12 days of time already served in pre-trial detention, reducing his actual active sentence to 36 years, four months and 19 days. Crown Counsel Cornelius Tittle prosecuted the case on behalf of the state, while Ronald Marks served as defense counsel for Franklyn.