A serial killer, believed to be behind the murders of nine people, was sentenced yesterday in the Supreme Court on his 51st birthday.

Cyril Darville was sentenced to 55 years behind bars for the 1990 murder of 27-year-old Anthony Feaste.

Darville, a former City Market butcher, is accused of killing a number of unlicensed taxi drivers, better known as “hackers.”

By the age of 28 he had already been charged with the other eight murders, but was never tried for them.

In 1992 he got the death penalty for the shooting death of Feaste.

But that had to be revisited following the Privy Council’s 1996 decision to make the death sentence “unconstitutional.”
Darville then had to be resentenced.

When asked if he had anything to say, Darville apologised to the court, the victim’s family, his parents, his family and all Bahamians.

“I am sorry,” he said.

But despite a remorseful apology, Justice Jon Isaacs handed down a 55 year sentence.

Justice Isaacs did this after taking a number of things into consideration including a prison report showing that Darville had been on good behavior while behind bars.

According to the report, read by probation officer Janice McKenzie, Darville had been very helpful with mopping floors and cleaning bathrooms and had only been involved in three incidents during his two decade stay at the Fox Hill facility.

However, Justice Isaacs reminded the court of the probation officer’s final statement that Darville may not have been “revealing his true nature” to prison guards as he did with family and friends who never believed he could commit such a heinous crime.

Because Darville has already served 21 years behind bars, this leaves him with an additional 34 years to go.

Pleading for his client to be released back into society or at the max be given three years was Dorsey McPhee who stressed that Darville committed the crime when he was 26 and is now a changed man.

After the sentencing, the attorney said he knows his client must be extremely troubled by the outcome.
“I know he’s distraught,” he said.

“Anyone facing a 55-year sentence would be. But when you take into consideration time spent and they take a third off each year, he’s still a relatively young man. So he should be coming out soon.”

There are certain rules which allow the sentencing to be revisited every three years and according to Mr. McPhee, he will “act on recommendation.”