Second time killer gets 18 years prison sentence

JUSTICE Franklyn Holder, noting that a lenient sentence for killing his spouse did not benefit previously convicted prisoner Godfrey Stewart, inflicted an 18 years prison sentence on the 61-year-old repeat offender Monday, for having killed his reputed wife, Jacquelene George, on March 14, 2010. The prisoner was indicted for murder but, like on the first occasion when he pleaded not guilty to the capital offence but guilty to manslaughter, he did the same thing, after admitting that following a quarrel and fight between them, he had chopped the woman to death and then lit her Sophia, Greater Georgetown house afire.
The judge, sitting at the Demerara Assizes, had taken into account a probation report, a stirring plea in mitigation by Defence Counsel Bettina Glasford and a narration of the facts by State Prosecutor Judith Mursalin.
The case for the Prosecution was that, during the wee hours of March 14, 2010, the Police at Turkeyen Station received a report about a fire at a dwelling house in Sophia and, as a result, Constable Zane Williams went to ‘E’ Field, at the home of Stewart, which, at the time, he shared with his reputed wife George.
George’s daughter, Sharon went to the burnt structure where she observed her mother wrapped in a sheet, as she usually is when sleeping, but her charred remains were by the door.
She recognised her mother from the six gold capped teeth in her mouth.

Charred remains
Constable Williams took the charred remains of a female from that Sophia address to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she was pronounced dead, after which she was escorted to the Lyken Funeral Parlour to await a post mortem.
Subsequently, Government Forensic Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Simgh performed a post mortem examination on the body of George and found that she had suffered an incised wound across the anterior aspect of the neck.
The doctor said there was no soot in the trachea nor any vital reaction of the burnt areas which suggest that George was already dead before the house was set on fire.
He gave the cause of death as the incised neck wound.
According to the State Prosecutor, these have, obviously, not impacted on Stewart since he is a repeat offender who had been charged and indicted for the murder of another woman, Dawn Edinboro and assault causing actual bodily harm and robbery with aggravation.
On that occasion, he pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter and was sentenced to six years imprisonment.
Having served that sentence, he then committed the present crime.
The Prosecutor urged the judge that the sentence imposed should send a clear message to Stewart that, even though he was given an opportunity to have a second chance at life after serving his earlier punishment, he squandered that opportunity and found himself before the Court, again, having snuffed out the life of yet another woman.
When asked by the judge whether he had anything to say, the convict claimed that his reputed wife had first attacked him with a knife that early morning and he was injured and had to be hospitalised.