Cordell Farrington

Last updated
Cordell Farrington
Born1968 (age 55–56)
Nassau, Bahamas
Conviction(s) Murder(5 counts); reduced to manslaughter on appeal
Manslaughter (4 counts)
Criminal penalty Death; commuted to life imprisonment
Details
Victims5
Span of crimes
2002–2003
CountryBahamas
State(s) Grand Bahama
Date apprehended
October 26, 2003

Cordell Farrington (born 1968) is a Bahamian serial killer who killed four children and his adult lover from 2002 to 2003. [1] Initially sentenced to death for killing 22-year-old Jamal Robins, he was later resentenced to another count of life imprisonment on the basis of his insanity.

Contents

Early life

Farrington was born in 1968, and according to his own claims, was abused as a child. At some point in his life, he had become addicted to crack cocaine but managed to rehabilitate himself over time. [2] Farrington then went on to attempt working at several places, including training as a priest, [1] before settling to work at a warehouse. [2] In his spare time, he would draw pictures of boys crying, some of which were even showcased at exhibitions at the Artists' Association of Grand Bahama. [1]

At some point, he married a woman identified only by the name of 'Dean', with whom he had a daughter. According to Dean, Farrington was a good father, but they eventually had to part ways after she noticed he had begun losing weight too fast and suspected he had taken up smoking crack again. [2]

Murders and surrender

Over a period of five months, a total of 5 boys suddenly vanished overtime from Grand Bahama: Mackinson Colas (11), DeAngelo Mackenzie (13), Junior Reme (11), Desmond Rolle (14) and Jake Grant (12). [2] Grant's case was later determined to be unrelated to the deaths, but the remaining cases shocked the country's population. The Royal Bahamas police detectives couldn't keep up with the pressure from the angry families, and so, they got in contact with Scotland Yard and the FBI. [1]

However, on October 26, 2003, Farrington gave himself up to the police, confessing to the murders of the boys, as well as the killing of his lover Jamal Robins in Freeport in 2002, whom he had met while in a rehabilitation center. [2] He then directed the police to remote parts of the island and to his house, where, in numbered boxes, the bones of some of the children were found. [1]

Trials and sentence

Farrington was soon after arraigned before the court, and was subsequently sentenced to death for killing Robins and an additional four life sentences for the boys' murders. [1] His charges were reduced to manslaughter, as it was determined he suffered from a severe personality disorder. [3]

In 2014, Farrington appeared before the court again, with the request of having his sentence quashed in connection with Robins' killing. [4] He based his reasoning upon the case of Dominic Moss, a man initially convicted of killing a woman in a drunk driving incident and later released from prison. [3] On March 31, 2015, the court quashed the sentence and replaced it with another count of life imprisonment. [4]

See also

Related Research Articles

A thrill killing is premeditated or random murder that is motivated by the sheer excitement of the act. While there have been attempts to categorize multiple murders, such as identifying "thrill killing" as a type of "hedonistic mass killing", actual details of events frequently overlap category definitions making attempts at such distinctions problematic.

The Bridgewater Four are four men who were tried and found guilty of killing 13-year-old paperboy Carl Bridgewater, who was shot in the head at close range near Stourbridge, England, in 1978. In February 1997, after almost two decades of imprisonment, their convictions were overturned and the three surviving defendants were released; the fourth defendant had died in prison two years into his sentence. Bridgewater's murder remains unsolved.

Colin Ireland was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer, because his victims were gay. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Moore (serial killer)</span> Welsh serial killer

Peter Howard Moore is a British serial killer who managed cinemas in Bagillt, Holyhead, Kinmel Bay and Denbigh in North Wales at the time of his arrest. He murdered four men in 1995. Due to his trademark attire of a black shirt and tie, he was dubbed the "man in black".

Yoo Young-chul is a South Korean serial killer, sex offender, and self-confessed cannibal. After he admitted to the murders of multiple people, mostly prostitutes and wealthy old women, the Seoul Central District Court convicted him of 20 murders, although one case was dismissed when it was identified as being committed by another serial killer, Jeong Nam-gyu. Yoo burned three and mutilated at least 11 of his victims and admitted that he ate the livers of some of them. He committed his crimes between September 2003 to July 2004 and was apprehended on 15 July 2004. Yoo explained his motives in front of a TV camera saying "Women shouldn't be sluts, and the rich should know what they've done."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sture Bergwall</span> Swedish alleged serial killer

Sture Ragnar Bergwall, also known as Thomas Quick from 1993–2002, is a Swedish man previously believed to have been a serial killer, having confessed to more than 30 murders while detained in a mental institution for personality disorders. Between 1994 and 2001, Quick was convicted of eight of these murders. However, he withdrew all of his confessions in 2008. As a result, his murder convictions were quashed, the final one in July 2013, and he was released from hospital. The episode raised issues about how murder convictions could have been obtained on such weak evidence, and has been called the largest miscarriage of justice in Swedish history. Journalists Hannes Råstam and Jenny Küttim and Dan Josefsson published TV documentaries and books about the murder cases; they claimed that bad therapy led to false confessions. Dan Josefsson claims that a "cult"-like group led by psychologist Margit Norell manipulated the police and talked Sture Bergwall into false confessions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Choon-jae</span> South Korean serial killer (born 1963)

Lee Chun-jae is a South Korean serial killer known for committing the Hwaseong serial murders. Between 1986 and 1994, Lee murdered fifteen women and girls in addition to committing numerous sexual assaults, predominantly in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province, and the surrounding areas. The murders, which remained unsolved for thirty years, are considered to be the most infamous in modern South Korean history and were the inspiration for the 2003 film Memories of Murder.

Mark Valera is an Australian serial killer who was convicted in 2000 of the murders of David O'Hearn and Frank Arkell in Wollongong, New South Wales. Valera handed himself into police after the murders, and in court accused his father of violent and sexual abuse, citing this as the reason he himself turned violent. His sister, Belinda van Krevel, later organised for their father to be murdered by a family friend. Valera is currently incarcerated at the Goulburn Correctional Centre, where he is serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

Choo Han Teck is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was formerly a lawyer before his appointment to the court as a judge. It was revealed in 2021 that Choo was one of the defence lawyers representing Adrian Lim, the infamous Toa Payoh child killer who was executed in 1988 for charges of murdering a girl and boy as ritual sacrifices. In 1994, Choo also defended Phua Soy Boon, a jobless Singaporean who was hanged in 1995 for killing a moneylender.

In the United States, life imprisonment is amongst the most severe punishments provided by law, depending on the state, and second only to the death penalty. According to a 2013 study, 1 of every 2,000 inhabitants of the U.S. were imprisoned for life as of 2012.

<i>Broken Lives</i> Book by Estelle Blackburn

Broken Lives was written by Estelle Blackburn between 1992 and 1998. The book is about the false imprisonment of two people, John Button and Darryl Beamish who were both convicted for murders that were later proved to be committed by Eric Cooke the last man hanged in Western Australia in the Fremantle Gaol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terry Blair (serial killer)</span> American serial killer

Terry Anthony Blair is an American serial killer who was convicted of killing seven women of various ages in Kansas City, Missouri, though investigators believe he may have additional unidentified victims.

Sidney Charles Cooke is an English convicted child molester and suspected serial killer serving two life sentences. He was the leader of a paedophile ring suspected of up to twenty child murders of young boys in the 1970s and 1980s. Cooke and other members of the ring were convicted of three killings in total, although he was only convicted of one himself.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rodney Alcala</span> American serial killer (1943–2021)

Rodney James Alcala was an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death in California for five murders committed between 1977 and 1979, receiving an additional sentence of 25 years to life after pleading guilty to two further homicides committed in New York State in 1971 and 1977. While he has been conclusively linked to eight murders, Alcala's true number of victims remains unknown and could be much higher – authorities believe the actual number is as high as 130.

Bandali Michael Debs is an Australian convicted serial killer currently serving four consecutive terms of life imprisonment plus 27 years for the murder of two Victoria Police officers in August 1998 and for the 1997 murder of teenager Kristy Harty. Debs was detained at HM Prison Barwon in Victoria. On 12 December 2011, Debs was convicted of the April 1995 shooting murder of New South Wales sex worker Donna Ann Hicks. He is portrayed by Australian actor Greg Stone in the telemovie Underbelly Files: Tell Them Lucifer was Here.

John Charles Bolsinger was an American serial killer who was posthumously linked to the murders of three women in Eugene, Oregon from 1986 to 1988, committed after his release from prison for a 1980 murder in Utah. He was never convicted of the latter homicides, as he committed suicide shortly after the final murder, and was linked to them via DNA analysis from Oregon State Police and Parabon NanoLabs in 2022.

David Smith is an English repeat murderer, rapist and suspected serial killer who came to national prominence in 1999 when he was convicted of murdering a sex worker six years after having been acquitted of an "almost identical" murder. Cleared of the murder of 33-year-old west London sex worker Sarah Crump in 1993, Smith was found guilty in 1999 of the killing of 21-year-old Paddington sex worker Amanda Walker. Smith has since been linked to a number of other murders of sex workers across Britain.

George Lamar Jones was an American serial killer who killed at least three women in Mississippi and Wisconsin from 1972 to 1997, with his latter murders occurring at the same time as those of Walter E. Ellis, another unrelated serial killer. For his respective crimes, Jones was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, remaining behind bars until his death in 2012.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Richard Luscombe (10 November 2003). "Serial murder police find remains". The Guardian .
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Dominic Duncombe (4 November 2003). "Serial killer was 'so nice'". News24 .
  3. 1 2 Lamech Johnson (3 December 2014). "Serial Killer Challenges Sentence For Manslaughter Of His Lover". Tribune 242.
  4. 1 2 "Court quashes Farrington's sentence for lover's killing". The Nassau Guardian. 31 March 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.