– Jury took approximately six hours to reach murder verdict
RICHARD Reid alias ‘Bully Boy’ who stabbed to death Michael Rodrigues at a rum shop in Better Hope, East Coast Demerara in 2002, was last evening sentenced to death after a mixed Demerara Assize jury had found him guilty of murder. The jury, having sought further directions from the judge in relation to murder and manslaughter, had taken five hours and fifty minutes to reach the unanimous murder verdict.

Before passing sentence of death, the judge had enquired from the prisoner whether he had anything to say why the sentence of death should not be passed on him.

The accused, with head bowed, told Justice Brassington Reynolds: “I did not kill Michael. I am innocent.”

The Marshal at this stage ordered all in court to stand as the sentence of ‘Death’ was passed on Richard Reid, called ‘Bully Boy”.

The judge had, among other things, directed that the prisoner be taken from the Court to a lawful prison and thence to a place of execution where he shall be hanged by the neck until he be dead.

“May the Lord have mercy upon your soul,” the judge told the condemned man.

The accused had a conversation with his lawyer, Mr. Compton Richardson before he was taken away.

Prosecutor Zamilla Ally had called 11 witnesses for the prosecution.

The case for the prosecution disclosed that the accused and Michael Rodrigues, now deceased, were in a rum shop at Better Hope on September 15, 2002, when following a scuffle between the two men, Rodrigues was fatally stabbed.

No one saw the stabbing, but one witness said that before the stabbing, the accused was seen with a ‘black handle knife’ walking closely behind Rodrigues who was moving towards the counter.

The prosecution was relying on circumstantial evidence but later obtained a confession statement from the accused who, at the time, said

that he did not intend to kill Rodrigues.

At the trial, the accused denied telling the police what were in the content of the confession statement, and his lawyer urged the jury to find that the confession was a fabrication by the police.

The jury by their verdict have rejected the story as told by the defence and accepted that of the prosecution.

The trial has so far lasted 10 days and included two voir dires (trials within a trial) which resulted in the judge ruling that a confession statement was part of the certified depositions before the Court and that the alleged confession by the accused was freely and voluntarily made by the accused to the police.