On March 13, 2014, a jury in Jamaica’s Home Circuit Court convicted Vybz Kartel — Adidja Palmer — and three co-accused of the murder of Clive “Lizard” Williams. The verdict, reached by a 10–1 majority after a trial of sixty-four days, also convicted Shawn “Shawn Storm” Campbell, Kahira Jones and Andre St John; a fifth defendant, Shane Williams, was acquitted, the Guardian records.
The case
Prosecutors alleged that Williams, entrusted with two of Kartel’s unlicensed firearms, failed to return them and was summoned to Palmer’s house on Swallowfield Avenue, Havendale, on August 16, 2011, where he was beaten to death. The house was later found gutted by fire; no body was recovered. The four men were arrested on September 30, 2011. They have maintained their innocence throughout.
Sentencing
On April 3, 2014, the four were sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour. Palmer received a minimum term of thirty-five years before parole eligibility; St John thirty years; Campbell and Jones twenty-five years each, according to the Privy Council judgment in Campbell and others v The King [2024] UKPC 6. Palmer’s minimum was later reduced to thirty-two and a half years on appeal.
Why it matters
The conviction removed dancehall’s dominant figure from the stage at the height of his influence — yet Kartel continued to release music from prison, and his fan base remained among the largest in the genre. A decade later, the Privy Council would quash the convictions over juror misconduct; that chapter is documented separately. This entry records the 2014 verdict as it stood at the time.
Listen and dig deeper
- Browse Vybz Kartel and Shawn Storm in the JamaicansMusic library.
- Previously: The Voice of the Jamaican Ghetto (2013). Next: Privy Council quashes the conviction (2024). Full coverage: Privy Council judgment report.
Sources: Judicial Committee of the Privy Council — Campbell and others v The King [2024] UKPC 6; The Guardian — “Jamaican musician Vybz Kartel has murder conviction quashed” (Mar 14, 2024); BBC Newsbeat — conviction report (Mar 14, 2024).
Editor’s note: This entry is part of the JamaicansMusic online museum — a career timeline assembled from the archive. It is dated to the era it documents; every claim is drawn from the linked sources.