Cordell Farrington

Early life

Farrington was born in 1968 and claimed to have been abused as a child. He became addicted to crack cocaine but later rehabilitated himself.

He attempted several jobs, including training as a priest, before working at a warehouse. In his spare time, he drew pictures of boys crying, some exhibited by the Artists' Association of Grand Bahama. He married a woman named Dean, with whom he had a daughter; she described him as a good father but left after suspecting he had resumed smoking crack.

Murders and surrender

Over five months, five boys vanished from Grand Bahama: Mackinson Colas (11), DeAngelo Mackenzie (13), Junior Reme (11), Desmond Rolle (14), and Jake Grant (12). Grant's case was later deemed unrelated.

The disappearances shocked the country, and local police sought help from Scotland Yard and the FBI. On October 26, 2003, Farrington surrendered to police, confessing to killing the four boys and his lover Jamal Robins in Freeport in 2002. He led officers to numbered boxes containing the children's bones.

Trials and sentence

Farrington was arraigned and sentenced to death for Robins's murder and to four life terms for the boys' killings. His charges were reduced to manslaughter after a determination that he suffered from a severe personality disorder. In 2014, he sought to have his sentence quashed, citing the case of Dominic Moss. On March 31, 2015, the court replaced the death sentence with another count of life imprisonment.

Did You Know?

• The bones of some children were found in numbered boxes at Farrington's house and in remote parts of the island.
• The case of Dominic Moss, a man released after a drunk driving conviction, was cited by Farrington in his 2014 appeal.