A Jamaica man was convicted at trial Tuesday of murder in the first degree and other crimes for the vicious stabbing deaths of his girlfriend, her son and a visiting cousin during a bloody rampage in June 2022.
Travis Blake, 31, of 155th Street, faces up to life in prison at sentencing following the three-and-a-half-week-long trial. The jury deliberated for just two hours before reaching the guilty verdict in Queens Supreme Court.
According to trial testimony and the indictment, on June 24, 2022, at around 2:15 p.m., police from the 113th Precinct in Jamaica and EMS responded to a 911 call from a resident inside a single-family home at 116-11 155th St.
The resident, a son of the homeowner, was inside the residence when he smelled a foul odor and discovered the body of his cousin, Vashawna Malcolm, 22, who was on a bed in an upstairs bedroom in an advanced state of decomposition. Her wrists, ankles, and mouth were wrapped with duct tape. She was partially nude from the waist down, and she had three stab wounds to the chest and one to her neck. Officers then discovered two more bodies behind a locked door in the cellar. Homeowner Karlene Barnett, 55, was found dead in a puddle of her own blood with 10 stab wounds to her back, a stab wound to her head, and multiple skull fractures. Barnett’s son, Dervon Brightly, 36, was discovered in another basement room with 13 puncture wounds from a screwdriver driven repeatedly into his neck and multiple skull and facial fractures consistent with having been inflicted by a hammer.
According to trial records, Barnett met Blake at work, and the two were dating. They lived at the home with Barnett’s son, Brightly, and Malcolm, a nursing student and Barnett’s niece who was visiting from the island nation of Jamaica for the summer. A fifth person, Barnett’s other son, also lived at the home.
Video surveillance of the exterior of the house, detailed in trial records, showed Blake entering and exiting the house several times between June 22 and June 24. The video recording also showed Brightly entering at approximately 2:55 p.m. on June 22 wearing a striped shirt. When the 36-year-old’s bloodied body was discovered in the basement, he was found wearing the same striped shirt.
The surveillance camera also showed Blake outside the residence in a green shirt before Brightly came home on June 22. A short time after Brightly entered the home, Blake exited the building wearing no shirt and with a bandage wrapped around one of his hands.
Barnett was also seen on video coming home on June 22 at around 7:30 p.m., the last time she was seen alive. When she was murdered, she was still wearing a jacket that she wore when she arrived home. Blake is last seen on video at approximately 1 a.m. on June 24, walking toward Sutphin Boulevard and getting into a taxi.
Police found a bloody screwdriver beside Brightly’s body, missing the bit. The bit was recovered from inside Brightly’s neck during his autopsy. There was also a bloody hammer and bucket inside the residence, along with bottles of household cleaner with blood stains on them.
Crime scene investigators retrieved an empty roll of duct tape and a green, blood-stained shirt from inside the home.
“This defendant went on a stabbing rampage, killing his girlfriend and her son in their own home along with a visiting relative,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “Another occupant of the home found one of the bodies and called police, leading to the gruesome discovery of two additional victims. They had been dead for more than 36 hours.”
Blake fled New York City immediately after the triple murder. The brief manhunt for Blake ended with his arrest in Bar Harbor, Maine, a few weeks later, when members of the NYPD’s Regional Fugitive Task Force took him into custody in coordination with local law enforcement agencies. Blake fought his extradition for much of that summer but was ultimately sent back to Queens where he was booked at the 113th Precinct on Sept. 16, 2024.
He was connected to the crime scene through DNA evidence on the blood-stained shirt and from bloody footprints found on the basement floor next to Barnett’s body. His fingerprint was also discovered on a blood-stained mop on the stairs leading to the cellar.
Trial openings began on March 12, and closings on March 31. The jury found Blake guilty of murder in the first degree, three counts of murder in the second degree, and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. Queens Supreme Court Justice Ushir Pandit-Durant, who presided at trial, set May 1 for sentencing. At that time, Blake faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
“The defendant fled the state seeking to escape justice,” Katz said. “Apprehended and returned to New York, a jury has now spoken and found this man guilty of murder in the first degree.”
