Accused Dwayne Jordan to face
A mixed jury at the Demerara Assizes yesterday failed to agree on a verdict, resulting in the accused in the Den Amstel murder case, Dwayne Jordan, having to face a retrial at a subsequent session.
Jordan, represented by Mr. Nigel Hughes, had been on trial for the murder of his wife Claudine Rampersaud, whose chopped up body was found in an abandoned building at Clay Brick Road, Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara, where the couple once lived.
On June 14, Ryan Lewis called ‘Bow-foot’ and his wife and two children were returning home from their son’s birthday party when a scream from Claudine Rampersaud,  from the abandoned building, attracted them.
They investigated by climbing the steps of the building where Shellon was. During the trial, Lewis – the star witness, told Justice Roxanne George and the mixed jury that he did not tell the Magistrate at the  Preliminary Inquiry that he was  holding a child in his left hand when he kicked down a door in answer to the scream of Claudine Rampersaud, now dead.
The witness said this in answer to cross-examination by Defence Counsel, Mr.  Nigel Hughes.
When asked why he did not tell the magistrate the story that he told the judge and jury, witness said that although the incident was fresher in his mind before the magistrate, he might have forgotten to mention it.
Lewis had earlier told the judge and jury that, on the night in question, he and his wife Shellon were walking along Clay Brick Street, when the screams of Claudine caused him to enter a yard and climb a stairs to the abandon house where the screams had been coming from.
He explained to the judge and jury that both he and his wife were unarmed that night. He had one child, a four-year-old girl in his arm and resting on his shoulder while the wife had a small boy, also in her arms.
According to him, “The wife and I went up the stairs together but she was slightly in front of me. When I reached the landing of which was once an abandoned house, I was still holding the child in my left hand, when I kicked down the door with my right foot. 
“The house was dark and I couldn’t see anybody,   but my wife who was slightly in front of me received the first blow with an hatchet. I then received a  blow with the hatchet and I grabbed the hand with the hatchet and there was a scuffle between us when I realized that the man was also armed with a knife.  During a scramble, we rolled down the step during which the man was cut with his own knife in the abdomen and I was cut in the back.
“When we reached the ground, I recognized from the light from a nearby house, that the man was Dwayne Jordan. I ran a short distance and collapsed. When I regained consciousness, I was in hospital. It was after speaking with persons who visited me at the hospital that I was able to formulate the story.
In an unsworn statement from the dock, the accused  had said that on the night in question, he was waiting on a call from his wife to come and pick her up after work. About six weeks before he was told that she had  another lover. That night, after not seeing her,  Jordon said he was told that she had gone into the abandon building with ‘a man’. The accused said he walked up to the building and, as he was about to enter, he was struck by his wife’s lover.
He said that during a struggle with the man who was pelting lashes at him, his wife was trying to part them.
Miss Prithima Kissoon and Mis Konyo Sandiford conducted the case for the prosecution.