Witness testifies murder accused confessed to burning victim
POLICE Detective Sergeant Charles Browne told Justice Winston Patterson and a mixed Berbice Assizes jury that the accused indicted for murder confessed, to him, that she set her husband afire, resulting in his death, because of an existing domestic problem.

The oral confession was admitted in evidence after Justice Winston Patterson overruled an objection to its admissibility by Defence Counsel Charrandas Persaud, who had submitted that it breeched the Judges’ Rules.

Browne was testifying at the trial of Michel Skeete, who is facing an indictment for unlawfully killing Lincoln Gilead called Jerry.

The case for the Prosecution, being presented by State Counsel Dionne Mc Cammon, is that on May 14, 2006, the victim awakened Edith Clarke and, having related something to her, was taken to New Amsterdam Hospital, suffering burns about his body.

Gilead was transferred to Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where he died from septic burns and was buried on May 25, 2006, at Stanleytown Cemetery in New Amsterdam.

Browne, through evidence-in-chief by Mc Cammon, said he did not believe what the accused said about 02:15h, as she appeared to be confused.

However, he said, having left her in the compound of New Amsterdam Hospital, in company with the now deceased Detective Constable George Bastiani, he proceeded to the Out-patient Department where he saw Gilead lying on a trolley, with injuries about his body.

The witness said, after being told something by the burnt man, he arrested the accused and took her to Central Police Station, where, under caution, she said: “Me and my husband had a domestic problem at our residence and I lit him afire.”

Refused
Browne recalled making an entry in the Station Diary of what the accused said, before taking her into custody, after she refused to make a written statement.

Browne said at 04:30 h, Skeete, accompanied by her brother, son and Bastiani, took him to the crime scene at Cumberland, East Canje, where he was shown a partly burnt mattress in the living room.

Under cross-examination, the witness said he has been in the Guyana Police Force (GPF) for 23 years and spent nine of those years as a detective.

He agreed it would have been a better to use a notebook during his investigation but, while he had accepted what the accused said to him, in relation to her reputed husband’s injuries, it was not conclusive.

The witness said he did not have a female with him when he arrested the accused and, for that reason, he allowed her under age son and brother to accompany her.

Browne could not say if the mattress was tendered in evidence during the preliminary inquiry (PI).

In re-examination, by Mc Cammon, he said, after observing the behaviour of the accused, he presumed that she was confused and thought it best to have her confirm what she had previously stated.

He said he might have forgotten to mention that the two relatives of the accused had accompanied her to the station.

Further cross-examined by Persaud, the policeman said, when he recorded in his deposition that there was no one present to hear the accused confess orally, he was referring to Police ranks.

Fairness
In answer to the jury, the witness said the minor was allowed at the crime scene in all fairness to the accused, his mother.

He also said there was burnt furniture in close proximity to the mattress and that he knew the accused and the victim prior to the burning.

Another witness, Harold Gilead, brother of the dead man, remembered responding to a telephone call and going to New Amsterdam Hospital where he saw his sibling with his skin peeled from burns on his feet, abdomen and hands.

He recalled speaking to his brother and the doctor who, subsequently, transferred him to the GPH.

In cross-examination, the witness said he received the phone call from a neighbour and saw the accused crying in the vicinity of his brother’s hospital bed.

Answering the jury, Gilead said, when he arrived at the hospital, he his brother lamented: “You see what Michel do to me.”

The witness said he did not know if she heard as she was crying and saying, from a corner of the room: “Oh Jerry.”

One more Police witness, Sergeant Glensford Burnette told the Court he photographed the scene and the photographs were tendered at the PI.

Questioned by Persaud, he said he could not recall whether there were civilians in the Police vehicle which took him to the home of the accused but recounted that six policemen were there.
The trial is continuing.