R v Shakeim Cranstion

• Jurisdiction: Saint Kitts and Nevis
• Court: High Court (Saint Kitts and Nevis)
• Judge: ‘Morley J’
• Judgment Date: 15 December 2025
• Judgment citation (vLex): [2025] ECSC J1215-1
• Docket Number: CASE SKBHCR 2024/0018

Rex

and

Shakeim Cranston

[2025] ECSC J1215-1

CASE SKBHCR 2024/0018

IN THE EASTERN CARIBBEAN SUPREME COURT

IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE

APPEARANCES

Ms Greatess Gordon Hazel, Ast.DPP, and Mr Leslie Roberts, Senior Crown Counsel, for the Crown.

Mr Hesketh Benjamin for the defendant, assisted by Mr Craig Tuckett.

SENTENCE

For murder, as execution by shooting through head at hospital

‘Morley J’

1 Following trial during 18.09–10.10.25, Shakeim Cranston aka Shaq and Little Nuzzle, aged 31 (dob 21.01.94) was convicted unanimously by jury of the murder on 20.06.17 when 23, of Darnell Govia aka Bushey, aged 31, by shooting him in the style of an execution through the head dead at the JNF hospital. The sentence was discussed on 26 and 27.11.25, the death penalty has not been sought by the Crown, with adjournment to today for remarks to be in writing.

2 On 20.06.17, Govia had gone at 08.00hrs to the JNF hospital to help a friend who had a medical appointment. He sat in a corridor alcove near the bloods laboratory. Cctv shows Cranston with open face and head at the hospital at 08.07 passing the x-ray room and then at 08.13, wearing sunglasses and a hat, in minor disguise, with an evident bulge under his white tshirt at his right waist, which as inference was a pistol, at which point he was hunting for Govia. Further cctv showed him at 08.22 climb stairs onto the corridor and then seeing Govia, he began shooting at him down the corridor, people fleeing, where at least two bullets went through the far door and window. Govia ran across the corridor out a side door, pursued by Cranston who can be seen plainly to be holding a pistol, and he chased him across some grass in the hospital grounds and caught him. Cranston then executed Govia by shooting him defenceless through the head, 7cm below the top of the head and 3 cm to the left of the posterior midline. The direction of the wound goes from back to front with downward deviation, showing Cranston shot down into Govia whose back of head was below the pistol, suggesting Cranston was over him delivering a calculated deliberate shot designed to kill. There was also a defensive bullet wound to the right palm.

3 Crantson denied having anything to do with the killing, the defence being the identification was unreliable, though there was no positive case as he did to give evidence, nor called any, and said naught to police.

4 However, the quality of the cctv was very good, including clear stills, such that it was possible for the jury to conclude they could see for themselves the killer was Cranston, while he was also identified on the cctv by police officers, his dna was recovered from Jordan draggers by the body, Cranston was within minutes discovered nearby sweating, the killer having run off, shoeless, in the same clothes as the killer on cctv, minus the hat, gun, and sunglasses, wearing a ring visible on the cctv, and on his white tshirt there was gunshot residue to match a shell casing also found by the body. The case was overwhelming.

5 It was a distinct feature of the case the murder was wholly premeditated, with Cranston scouting the hospital having somehow learned Govia was there, and then between 08.07 and 08.13 being given a pistol and hat to be a minor disguise, hunting for Govia, and on seeing him, killing him, running off, while a man in blue shorts, apparently never identified by police (which this judge finds to be astonishing), seen also earlier in the x-ray area, can be seen on cctv to follow behind, picking up spent shells in the hospital corridor, openly to remove evidence.

6 Cranston is not of good character, having relevant convictions, being for wounding and assault on 22.08.14 when 20 at the magistrates for which he was fined, and on 16.10.18 aged 24 at the High Court for possession of an unlicensed firearm and ammunition, where when 19 on 21.11.13 he threw away a loaded firearm on arrest by police, receiving 8 years, then reduced on appeal on 22.03.22 to 4y49w1d, which was served while on remand for the murder after arrest on 20.06.17, and which murder was while on bail for the loaded firearm.

7 The case begged why did Cranston do it, and there was conjecture this was revenge for Cranston being shot multiple times on 20.10.15, through his hip, buttocks, flank, abdomen, and including through the penis, requiring multiple surgeries during two years, and for a time having a colostomy bag, which police had tried to investigate, but he would not cooperate. At one point, the Crown were openly contemplating they might accept provocation manslaughter if Cranston admitted to the killing and gave as his reason that it was Govia who had shot him, which the police had initially suspected. This may well have been correct as Govia was known to police to be a member of the ‘Phillps gang’, where he held the status of ‘General’, eulogized after death by the noted rapper Imark 1 (also murdered, on 18.08.24), while Cranston had at one point been said by police associated with the ‘KMS gang’ (killer mafia soldiers) through his brother Istan Mitcham aka ‘Big Nuzzle’, who had been murdered on 22.10.14, which had then led to Cranston leaving Basseterre supposedly to get away from this background, and so he ended up in Phillips, where it has been suggested by police he fell out with Govia over use of a firearm.

8 It is overwhelmingly clear the murder of Govia by Cranston is in a gangland context, though exactly what had been motivating hostilities is indistinct, and the court must weigh whether to sentence him as a out-right gangster, or as one who had tried to get away from it, and was then shot as one going straight in...