Press Release

Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz announced that Travis Blake was convicted at trial of murder in the first degree and other crimes for the vicious deaths of his girlfriend and two of her family members. The victims were found with an array of puncture and blunt force wounds and in a state of decomposition when they were discovered in their Jamaica home in June 2022.

District Attorney Katz said: “This defendant went on a stabbing rampage killing his girlfriend and her son in their own home along with a visiting relative. 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. The defendant fled the state seeking to escape justice. Apprehended and returned to New York, a jury has now spoken and found this man guilty of murder in the first degree.”

Blake, 31, of 155^th Street, in Jamaica, was convicted yesterday following a three-and-a-half-week-long trial. The jury found the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, three counts of murder in the second degree and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. 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.

Trial openings began on March 12 and closings on March 31. The jury deliberated for approximately two hours before reaching a verdict.

According to the indictment and trial testimony, on June 24, 2022, at approximately 2:15 p.m., EMS responded to a residence on 155^th Street following a 911 call from a resident of the single-family home. The resident, a son of the homeowner, was inside the home, smelled a foul odor and discovered the body of his cousin, Vashawna Malcolm, 22, who was on top of a bed in an upstairs bedroom in an advanced state of decomposition. Her wrists, ankles and mouth were wrapped with tape, she was partially nude from the waist down, and she had three stab wounds to the chest and one to her neck.

Police then discovered two more bodies behind a locked door to the basement. Homeowner Karlene Barnett, 55, was found deceased 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 in the home together with Barnett’s son, Brightly, and Malcolm, a nursing student and Barnett’s niece visiting from the island of Jamaica for the summer. A fifth person, Barnett’s other son, also lived in the home.

Video surveillance of the exterior of the house, detailed in trial records, showed Blake entering and exiting the home several times between June 22 and 24. The video recording also showed Brightly entering at approximately 2:50 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 video also showed the defendant outside the residence in a green shirt before Brightly came home on June 22. A short time after Brightly entered the house, 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 around 7:30 p.m., the last time she was seen alive. When she was killed, she was still wearing the jacket that she arrived home in. The defendant 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 of 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. Investigators retrieved an empty roll of duct tape and a green, blood-stained shirt from the home.

Blake fled New York City immediately after the killings. He was apprehended a few weeks later in Bar Harbor, Maine, and extradited to Queens. 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 basement.

Assistant District Attorney Jonathan A. Selkowe, Deputy Chief of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, prosecuted the case with the assistance of Assistant District Attorney Ashley Clement of the District Attorney’s Felony Trials II Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney John Kosinski, Bureau Chief, and under the overall supervision of Executive Assistant District Attorney for Major Crimes Shawn Clark.