2 and half years ago, Lavern Longsworth, better known as “Antichristâ€, went from serving life in prison for murder to a reduced sentence. Fuelled by a human rights project, her attorneys convinced the Court of Appeal that her conviction was excessive.Â
In 2014, they said she was supposed to serve four and a half more years in jail, but Longsworth got paroled and she has been free since last Wednesday.
It’s a huge reversal from July of 2010 when she set her common-law husband David White on fire and he later died from those injuries. She was convicted of murder in November of 2012, but her attorneys appealed in 2014, arguing that she should be afforded a defence of diminished responsibility, given that she suffered from battered women’s syndrome after years physical abuse at the hands of the late David White.
The judges agreed and reduced conviction for murder to a conviction for manslaughter. They substituted a sentence of life for 8 years with consideration for the amount of time she already spent in jail.
Well, the Parole Board at the Belize Central Prison reviewed her case and gave her early release on parole. She was released last week, and she has a strict list of rules for staying out prison while on parole. She was at the Magistrate’s Court today, on personal business, where she had a brief conversation with her former colleagues, the court reporters. She declined any on-camera interview, saying that she has been advised to stay from the press, keep indoors as much as possible, and try to comply with the rules as a parole.
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