Convict confessed to beheading victim for sacrifice
THIRTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD Colin Bentick, who confessed to beheading fellow villager Elon Shepherd, will return to the Berbice Assizes for sentence on May 30. On that date, a probation report and mitigation plea will be heard by Justice James Bovell-Drakes, at the request of Defence Counsel Mursulene Bacchus.
The lawyer was granted the adjournment after Bentick, who was indicted for murder, pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter.
State Prosecutor Rhondel Weaver, narrating the facts of the case, said, on October 31, 2007, a group of persons, including the victim and the witness Kinte Reynolds, were sitting beneath an old house playing dominoes at Seafield Village, West Coast Berbice.
Weaver said Reynolds knew Bentick for more than 14 years before then and, sometime between 12:00 hrs and 13:00hrs that day, the convict said, in the hearing of Reynolds:”Shepherd is a dead man.”
The prisoner then asked Shepherd whether he knew about his (the former’s) girlfriend but the latter replied in the negative.
Bentick then took a cutlass and chopped Shepherd on his right hand and Reynolds ran away so that he did not see what followed.
Weaver said another witness, a relative of Bentick, and two policemen were standing some distance off when they saw Bentick chopping someone in a continuous manner with a cutlass.

Stopped
More importantly, the prosecutor said, the two police ranks were among the party in a Force vehicle that was passing the village on their way to Georgetown when they were stopped and alerted to the ensuing incident by a passerby.
The two police witnesses responded by entering the street and saw Bentick chopping a person lying on the ground.
According to the State Prosecutor, Bentick was ordered to stop but he refused to comply with the police order and, when approached by one of the policemen, from about 26 feet, he advanced towards him with the murder weapon in hand.
This caused the officer to retreat and leave the scene to seek assistance while another rank remained some distance from Bentick until Detective Corporal Winston Singh arrived with reinforcement and arrested him.
However, before his arrest, he had severed Shepherd’s head from his body and held it up in one hand prior to throwing it to the ground.
Weaver said, upon his being apprehended, the allegation of the unlawful killing was put to Bentick, by Detective Corporal Singh, who also cautioned him and he replied:”I did chop and cut off Shepherd’s head.”
Homosexual
In the confession statement, Bentick said he was with some individuals and there he learnt that Shepherd known as ‘Fireman’, was a homosexual.
Bentick said he “took a spliff” (smoked a joint of marijuana) and went home for a cutlass and then returned to, under the house, where he had been in the company.
He said ‘Fireman’ attempted to run and he chopped him on his left hand, left shoulder, head and two feet and he fell.
The statement continued:”I chopped him on his neck, chop after chop, then I roll it off. I had to do a sacrifice.”
Government Pathologist Dr. Vivikanand Brijmohan, who performed the autopsy on Shepherd’s remains, revealed that death was due to shock and haemorrhage, due to severance of the neck and multiple wounds.
The expert said the deceased had been a healthy male of African descent when he succumbed to his injuries on October 31, 2007.