At Berbice Assizes…
THE woman who was on trial, at the Berbice Assizes, for the murder of her reputed husband, has been convicted of manslaughter. Michel Skeete showed no emotion when the jury, after deliberating for two and a half hours, returned an unanimous verdict that she was not guilty of the capital offence but of the lesser crime.
But sentence on the convict, who set afire her reputed husband, Prison Officer Lincoln Gilead, while he lay asleep in bed at their Cumberland, East Canje home, causing his death, was postponed to March 4.
Trial Judge Winston Patterson ordered a probation report on the prisoner to be ready on that date.
The victim succumbed to burns which covered between 70 and 75 per cent of his body and forensic pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh said, in the autopsy report, that Gilead died from septicemia, septic burns, cystitis and bronchopneumonia.
According to the witness, white gause bandages covered the upper and lower extremities of the corpse but he was unable to determine what substance was used to fuel the fire as the patient was hospitalised for days prior to the post mortem examination.
The case for the Prosecution, against Skeete, a mother of four who was dressed in a white top and a flowered black and white skirt on the last day of her trial, was that she committed the unlawful killing on May 14, 2006.
State Prosecutor Dionne Mc Cammon led evidence that Gilead awakened Edith Clarke and told her something that caused her to take him to New Amsterdam Hospital, with his skin peeled.
Gilead, who was then stationed at New Amsterdam Prison, was, subsequently, transferred to Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) where he died. He was buried on May 25, 2006, in Stanleytown Cemetery, Greater New Amsterdam.
Addressing the jurors before they retired to begin their deliberations, Mc Cammon said the Prosecution had satisfied all the elements of the case.
She said it was Skeete who inflicted the injuries on Gilead and he died as a result, within a day and a year of suffering them.
Mc Cammon maintained that Skeete injured Gilead with the intention to kill or cause him grievous bodily harm and the act was not done in self-defence, nor after provocation, neither by accident.
Earlier, Defence Counsel Charrandas Persaud had contended there was no evidence to prove that Skeete had a motive to commit such a dastardly act.
He submitted, too, that there had not been a confrontation between the accused and the victim, although they were both at New Amsterdam Hospital, where she was arrested.