By Daniel Massey
An unrepentant Jamaica woman was sentenced last week to 17 years in jail for the 1999 murder of an 18-year-old teacher’s aide at the Van Wyck Lanes bowling alley.
Dominique Livingston, 21, of Jamaica, who pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter on Dec. 6, was sentenced by State Supreme Court Justice Robert Hanophy for killing Adrienne Davis in the bowling alley that sits between Jamaica and Metropolitan avenues just west of the Van Wyck Expressway.
Davis’ family lined three rows of a courtroom in State Superior Court in Kew Gardens during last Thursday’s sentencing, according to a report by Newsday.
“You owe 17 years to the state and to this court,” Sonia Davis, an aunt of the victim told the court, Newsday said. “But there’s not a sentence this court could give you that could satisfy me unless you are in a body bag.”
According to the charges, Livingston walked up to Davis at 2:18 a.m. Nov. 21 inside the bowling alley and stabbed her once in the neck for no apparent reason. She died less than an hour later at Jamaica Hospital.
Although Livingston claimed she and the victim had a dispute years earlier, relatives said Davis did not know her assailant.
Davis, a 1999 graduate of Jamaica High School, worked as a teacher’s aide for autistic children at the Summit School in Holliswood and aspired to be a teacher, relatives said at the time of the murder.
Livingston originally faced second-degree murder charges that could have landed her in jail for 25 years to life, but she pleaded guilty to manslaughter in exchange for the lesser sentence.
Her plea bargain did not come with an apology, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said.
“The defendant has shown no remorse for her vicious and violent attack while armed with a deadly weapon which ended the life of a young woman just starting her career in education,” the DA said. “The long prison sentence is just punishment for the wanton, senseless crime.”
Reach reporter Daniel Massey by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
