WHEN the trial of Dwayne Jordon, who is accused of murdering his reputed wife Claudeene Rampersaud, 30, continued yesterday at the Demerara Assizes, Justice Navindra Singh and the mixed jury heard that after the young woman was found dead with chop wounds, the accused was found with a punctured abdomen and cut tendons. The woman’s body was taken to the mortuary, while the accused was taken to the hospital, and was later charged with murder.

Investigations that followed centred on how the accused came by his injuries, and whether it had anything to do with a fight or attempted suicide.

Reports state that when the accused was found in a clump of bushes not far from a house where the woman was believed to have been murdered, he remained silent when asked by the police whether he knew how his wife was injured. But when asked who the person was that had injured him and left him in a helpless condition, he replied, “Bowfoot”.

DPP lawyers Mrs. Konyo Thompson and Miss Renita Singh are conducting the case for the prosecution, while Attorney-at-Law Mr. Nigel Hughes is representing the accused.

Mrs. Thompson, who told the jury what to expect from the various witnesses, begged them not to let sympathy into their consideration.

Leonora Police Inspector Gemaine Harper said that during the month of June 2007, he was a corporal of police stationed at the Vreed-en-Hoop Police Station when he acted on information received of an alleged murder committed on one Claudeene Rampersaud, a female East Indian, aged 34, of Den Amstel, West Coast Demerara by one Dwayne Jordon, aged 44, and also of Den Amstel.

On June 16, 2007, he, Asst. Police Supt. Adrin Simon and two other ranks went to the Den Amstel area, where he jumped over a fence of Mr. Pickers’s residence and, in a clump of bushes, “I saw a male negro with his foot outstretched, with marks of violence on the exposed parts of the body. I then asked him his name, and he replied ‘Dwayne Jordon’. I further asked him who (had) killed his reputed wife Claudeene Rampersaud, and he remained silent.

“I then asked him how he (had) received the injuries that were seen on the exposed parts of his body, and he replied (that) ‘one Bowfoot (had) inflicted the injuries on me.’

“He was unable to walk, and he was placed in a police vehicle and taken for medical attention at the West Demerara Regional Hospital, from where he was later transferred to the Georgetown Hospital.”

Witness said that when he saw the accused in the clump of bushes, he noticed that his guts were protruding from his belly, and when he was lifted up, he noticed that both tendons at the back of his legs had been cut.

In answer to cross-examination by Mr. Hughes, witness said that he had never seen anyone with injuries similar to what the accused had before that day.

The trial is continuing.