The family of a woman who was brutally murdered by her abusive boyfriend must wait until Monday to hear how long he'll spend in jail.Jermaine Pearman, 37, stabbed 23-year-old prison officer Shakeya DeRoza at her home on Paynter Lane, Sandys, on July 10 2009.Pearman pleaded guilty to murder on Tuesday and was due to have his sentence meted out by Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves yesterday.However, proceedings ground to a halt when prosecution and defence lawyers ended up at loggerheads over several disputed issues.According to prosecutor Carrington Mahoney, the “brutal and sadistic” killing was the culmination of a series of brutal attacks Pearman inflicted on Ms DeRoza, the mother of his infant daughter.The prosecutor said on the day of the murder, Pearman broke into the victim's home, had “non-consensual” sex with her and stabbed her multiple times.Ms DeRoza suffered two wounds to her neck, one of which pierced her jugular vein, and one to her heart as well as a wound to her right hand.However, Pearman insisted, through his lawyer John Perry QC, that Ms DeRoza attacked him during a fight when both of them were armed with knives.Pearman claims Ms DeRoza stabbed him in the neck and died when his efforts at self-defence went too far. He denies breaking into her house and raping her.The dispute over these key issues means witnesses may have to be called on Monday to help the judge decide what the facts are.He heard yesterday from Mr Mahoney that Pearman and Ms DeRoza had been together since April 2006, although she had a son by another man in 2007.On Valentine's Day 2008, Pearman smashed his way into Ms DeRoza's home and hit her in the head. Part of the attack was witnessed by her neighbour David Minors, who was alerted by the noise of the row.Ms DeRoza was pregnant with Pearman's daughter at the time of the attack and was holding her eight-month-old son in her arms. Pearman told Mr Minors to get out and punched another neighbour who tried to intervene.In January 2009, the couple were staying at a guest house when Pearman shook Ms DeRoza until she passed out. He left with her son in his car, before phoning her and threatening to drive the car overboard into the water.According to one of the victim's friends: “He tried to control her and keep her locked down”.Mr Mahoney read entries from Ms DeRoza's diary in the months before the murder, in which she outlined concerns that Pearman might kill her.“I fear what Jermaine is capable of doing when not in control,” she wrote. “It is bad, I thought he would kill me while I slept. I dreamed about not being able to see my angels growing up.”Ms DeRoza told Pearman their relationship was over the month before he killed her. His response was to choke her, knock her to the ground and threaten to kill her, according to Mr Mahoney.She made it clear to Pearman via text messages on the day of the murder that she wanted nothing more to do with him.Mr Mahoney said evidence from the scene suggests Pearman exhibited “sadistic conduct” breaking into her house, binding her with duct tape and raping her, before stabbing her so hard the blade of the knife broke.Ms DeRoza managed to escape and ran, topless and bleeding, to get help from nearby shops on Middle Road. She collapsed and died before she could get medical attention. A knife blade without a handle was found near her body.The gruesome facts detailed by the prosecutor left Ms DeRoza's family and friends sobbing in the public gallery.Pearman was witnessed running towards the Railway Trail, where Police found him hiding in foliage near Somerset Bridge. He had blood on his chest and was holding a knife to his throat, threatening to kill himself.Officers spent an hour-and-a-half negotiating with him before he passed out and was taken to hospital suffering from what Mr Mahoney described as a self-inflicted neck wound.He was charged with premeditated murder and knife possession five days later. He entered a guilty plea on Tuesday, the day his trial was due to begin, to a lesser charge of non-premeditated murder. He continues to deny that he planned the killing or was armed with a knife as a weapon.Prosecutors accepted those pleas, but the judge's decision that sentencing would be postponed due to the dispute over the facts caused gasps of frustration from the victims' and defendants' families in the public gallery.Watch our website at www.royalgazette.com and read Tuesday's edition of the paper to find out what sentence Pearman gets.