Quincy Zuma Wambitta Timberlake, an erstwhile contender for the Kenyan presidency, stood accused of his three-year-old son’s gruesome slaying fuelled by his unfounded conviction that the child was possessed by extraterrestrials. However, he dodged a trip to the tribunal, after pleading guilty to the boy’s manslaughter.
In 2014, the morbid event unfurled at Timberlake’s dwelling in Kallangur, located in the northern reaches of Brisbane, where Sinclair, the toddler, met his untimely demise. A triad of months following this tragic incident, Timberlake, 43 at the time, found himself embroiled in murder charges.
The current week had initially been slated for Timberlake’s appearance before the Supreme Court of Brisbane. Instead, he confessed to involuntary manslaughter on Tuesday, leading the Crown to withdraw the charge of murder.
Initially, Timberlake had painted a picture of accidental death to the police, claiming Sinclair had tumbled down the stairs and lost his ability to breathe by the time the call for emergency services was placed. However, despite their ardent efforts, the paramedics were unable to reverse the irreversible.
The narrative took a grim turn, when Esther Timberlake, Quincy’s better half and Sinclair’s mother, divulged to the police the harsh reality. She alleged that Timberlake had not only landed fatal punches on the toddler’s abdomen but had also hurled him against a wall. Evidently, the mother’s crusade for truth did not absolve her completely; she was then found guilty of being an abettor to manslaughter by way of providing misleading information about her husband’s malevolent actions. She, however, was never implicated in her son’s physical harm.
The prosecution’s case against Timberlake revolved around his paranoid delusions of the toddler being inhabited by extraterrestrials nestled in his stomach. The grievous admission of manslaughter was accepted without dispute by Crown Prosecutor Caitlin Penfold in Brisbane Supreme Court. The anticipated jury-less trial was thus called off, and Justice Paul Freeburn was set to declare the sentence on the 29th of September. Pretrial dialogues brought to light Timberlake’s precarious mental health, diagnosed as a combination of psychosis and schizophrenia.
In a bid to rise to Kenya’s highest office, Timberlake announced in 2010 his intention to toss his hat into the political ring under the banner of PlaCenta—a political faction fashioned in unison with his wife and Joseph Hellon, founder of Kenya’s Finger of God church. Yet, future endeavors saw the Timberlake family relocate to Australia.
