Captain Barkey's Murderer Kills Himself During Standoff With U.S. Marshals in Miami

Courtesy of the NYPD

Joseph Kernizan, Haitian music promoter and alleged murderer.

Several hours before dawn on Saturday, dancehall vet Captain Barkey (born Joslyn Hamilton) and his lover Tracy Bennett were shot to death in the parking lot of the Holiday Motel in the Bronx.

The alleged murderer, according to New York City police: Joseph Kernizan, a Haitian music promoter and Bennett's ex.

Pursued from NYC to South Florida by the U.S. Marshals, the 42-year-old suspect was eventually trapped inside a two-story apartment building, located near the corner of NW 157th Street and Second Avenue in North Miami.

The cops worried that Kernizan was about to skip the country and head for Haiti. But instead, he chose to kill himself.

The victims: Barkey and Bennett.

Over the course of the last few years, a messy three-sided situation had apparently developed between Barkey, Bennett, and Kernizan, the father of two of her three kids.

In 2010, the dancehall deejay wrote a track, "Nah Left Joe," allegedly about this doomed romantic drama. And the promoter had been slapped with a restraining order for stalking Bennett, addding to his already loaded record of assault, forgery, criminal possession of a weapon, and robbery.



Then on October 13 at approximately 3:14 p.m., Kernizan pumped multiple rounds into Barkey before chasing Bennett behind the Bronx motel and killing her as she screamed, "Please no! Don't do it!"

"I heard [her] plead for [her] life and then heard gunshots," witness Keyshia Barrett told the New York Post. "She was begging."