Schenectady murderer gets 23 years to life

Jamell Modest, who gunned down his ex-girlfriend Markia Harris on Schenectady’s State Street in December 2014, was sentenced to 23 years to life in state prison Monday.

In August, Modest admitted to murdering Harris weeks after she ended their relationship. Modest fired five times at Harris while their infant son was in a car seat next to her.

The sentence was agreed upon as part of his August plea. But, while the number of years in state prison was set, the emotions of the day remained raw.

Barbara Michelle Young, Harris’ mother, recalled her daughter as a beautiful woman who worked to make a difference in people’s lives.

Markia’s four children, Young told a court, were her world. Harris’ dreams were to start her own business and help others. She had only recently realized one of those dreams, taking a job at SAFE Inc., a youth shelter.

“Then this coward Jamell Modest comes along and destroys all of my baby’s dreams,” Young said, speaking from a podium at Modest’s murder sentencing before Schenectady County Court Judge Michael V. Coccoma. “I truly don’t understand how someone could be so heartless and cruel.”

Young punctuated her statement to the court by pounding her hand on the podium. “He is a sick, deranged, cold-blooded murderer, and most of all, he is a coward.”

Modest appeared emotional throughout the proceedings. He looked down at his lap continuously. Also offering a statement was Harris’ grandmother Barbara Ham.

In his own statement to the court, with his attorney Michael Mansion standing next to him, Modest was contrite. He told Coccoma that he knows there is nothing he could say to the family that could undo the hurt and pain he caused them.

“I know what I did was the act of a coward and I’m very sorry,” Modest said, “and I wish it never happened. I hate myself for my actions and I hope I can get help.”

Prosecutor Christina Tremante-Pelham told Coccoma that Modest used the infant son he had with Harris to get close to her near the corner of State and Elder streets that afternoon. He fired at her five times from point-blank range. The shooting came after weeks of stalking and threats, the prosecutor said.

Tremante-Pelham also took issue with a statement Modest made in a pre-sentence report, that he was going through “a bad time.” Modest’s “bad time,” the prosecutor said, doesn’t begin to compare with what Harris’ family has had to go through since her death.

“Not only did he take away a young woman’s life,” Tremante-Pelham said, “but he took away everything she could become after that. He took away a mother, a daughter, a woman that this family loved very much.”

The judge said that Modest’s expression of remorse is one small step. Coccoma also said it was unfortunate that Modest didn’t recognize his faults and weaknesses before planning out his acts, getting a gun and executing Harris.

“By doing so was, in effect, you dropped an atomic bomb on her family,” Coccoma said. The impact of Harris’ loss goes beyond her immediate family, the judge noted. It goes to all the lives she would have touched in her efforts to help young people.

“You can never undo what you have done,” Coccoma said.

Harris’ grandmother Barbara Ham offered words in the form of a written statement read by another family member. Ham recalled her granddaughter’s work with youth, a job she loved. She also wrote of Harris’ children, who will grow up without a mother because of Modest.

“He has taken a very special person from all of us,” Ham said. “Maybe one day we will be able to forgive him because that is what God says we should do.

”But that time is not now,“ Ham wrote. ”He can rot in hell.“

Categories: News, Schenectady County