At Berbice Assizes
MARK Bangroo, alleged lover of the victim in the murder case at the Berbice Assizes, yesterday denied a suggestion that he did not go to the crime scene because he knew what he had done.
The witness was under cross-examination, by Senior Counsel Marcel Crawford, while testifying, before Justice Winston Patterson, at the trial of Eric Sookshine.
The accused is indicted for the unlawful killing of his wife, Jashorda Sookshine, at their Whim, Corentyne home, on June 3, 2005.
Bangroo, a minibus driver, admitted that he had an intimate relationship with the victim that began on January 5, 2005 and said, during that time, they went to hotels in New Amsterdam.
He said the affair was never drawn to the attention of the accused, his cousin, who lived four house lots away but his lover’s mother and other villagers used to gossip about them.
Bangroo said his wife had gone abroad and, although he was friendly with the 24-year-old Sookshine, he was never in love with her.
He said he did not know she was eight weeks pregnant at the time of her death, but agreed that, if she was indeed carrying his child, it would have posed a problem with his overseas based wife.
The witness, still being cross-examined by Crawford, said the Police arrested him at 07:00 h on the day the woman died and kept him in custody for five days before releasing him.
Earlier, led through evidence-in-chief by State Prosecutor Dionne Mc Cammon, Bangroo said, while doing household chores, he heard his neighbours and others shouting as they ran in the direction of the Sookshines home.
He said he stepped unto his bridge before returning into his yard and continued his domestic work when Police arrested and detained him.
Bangroo said, after four days in detention, a confrontation was held between him and the accused and he told a detective that, during an altercation, Sookshine had stamped him on his chest.
The witness said, in January 2005, Usha as he used to call the dead woman, had been to his home to borrow $5,000 and, after then, they became friends.
He said, on June 2, the night before she was killed, she, her husband and children visited his home to borrow $15,000 but he only had $4,000 which he lent them.
In her opening address to the jury last week, State Prosecutor Mc Cammon said the case is based on circumstantial evidence.
According to her, on the morning of June 3, 2005, Jashorda Sookshine was found motionless on her kitchen floor, with what appeared to be bloodstains on her clothing.
Mc Cammon said the Police were summoned and a cutlass, believed to be the murder weapon was found three feet away from the victim’s body.
She said the woman having been pronounced dead at Port Mourant Hospital, her corpse was examined by Government Pathologist Dr. Vivikanand Brijmohan, who recorded the cause of death as shock and haemorrhage, resulting from stab wounds to the heart.
The trial is continuing.
