A DEMERARA Assize jury yesterday found Vinod Balgobin guilty of murdering his wife Maryann Sunita Nauth at the K & VC Hotel on the night of May, 12, 2013.

Accordingly, Justice Franklyn Holder, presiding in the trial of the case, noted that life imprisonment was the penalty for murder, and declared that he would begin his sentence with 45 years.

He said he would deduct the two years that Balgobin had served in incarceration, leaving him to serve 43 years for the murder of his wife, the woman he had invited to her gruesome death.

However, Justice Holder advised Balgobin, “You will not be eligible for parole until you have served 27 years in prison.”

The judge noted the absence of remorse, as the convict disclosed his barbarity by saying nothing when, following the jury’s verdict, the court asked whether Balgobin had anything to say why sentence should not be passed on him.

Balgobin, who had confessed to the police that he had committed the crime, had pleaded not guilty at his trial, and had accused the police of putting the blame on him.

His lawyer, the veteran counsel Mr. Compton Richardson, joined his client in saying nothing in mitigation in regard to Balgobin’s deed.

The judge noted that the woman’s children would have to grow up without a mother’s care and attention because of the dastardly act of their father, who had committed the heinous crime of murdering their mother.

Although in court Balgobin denied committing the crime, in his confession statement to the police, he said that, on the day in question, he was having drinks with friends at Demico Gardens when he invited the woman to have some drinks.

He later told the police that he had gone to the K & V C Hotel on South Road that night, and had entered room 209, where he was going to have a good time. He went on to inform the police in a caution statement that the trouble started when his wife stripped, causing him to see a large tattoo across her abdomen. That, he said, sparked an argument between them, as he accused her of giving him blow and she cursed him.

He said he became annoyed and jooked her up with a knife which he had in his haversack.

Later that night, the woman was found dead on the bed of room 209, with a large knife thrust into her chest.

Government’s Forensic Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh, who performed a post-mortem on the body, testified to finding 35 incised wounds thereon.

State counsel Mrs. Teshana Lake, in association with lawyers Misses Orinthi Schmidt and Shawnette Austin, prosecuted.

By George Barclay