THE Director of Public Prosecution yesterday recommended that a known drug addict from the West Coast Demerara area be charged with the capital offence after the facts presented to her in the police file on Monday were reviewed.

Thus Stanley Barrow had a charge of murder read to him by Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate Christel Lambert yesterday.

Barrow was not required to plea to the indictable charge, which read that in July he had battered 68-year-old Magon Jones-Cox, also known as Jean Bernard, resulting in her death three days later.

Unrepresented in court, Barrow had nothing to say when offered opportunity by the magistrate.
Police sources have indicated that Barrow did confess to battering the woman after he had forcible vaginal and anal sex with her in July. He further told ranks that he decided to kill the woman after she began complaining about feeling pain while he was having unauthorized sex with her.

Jean Bernard, who was found in July with several broken bones and part of her tongue severed, was reportedly battered by three men and sexually assaulted before being left to die on the Jetty at Vreed-en-Hoop, West Coast Demerara.

Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle on Sunday afternoon, the dead woman’s daughter, Cleotha Cox, said she had last seen her mother on July 10 in Bartica. Cleotha acknowledged that her mother was not always in a sane frame of mind due to family issues and domestic problems, but she said that her mother was not out of sorts at the time she was attacked by the three men.

Cleotha recalled that when her mother was found, her jaw had been broken; part of her tongue had been severed; her ribs had been broken, as had been her right arm and leg; and her right eye had been plucked out.

Jones-Cox, who was left-handed, had been rescued by persons from the community in a semi-conscious state. She was asked if she could speak, and had responded by nodding her head in the negative; but when asked if she was able to write, she had nodded in confirmation.

She had then written her name and how persons could make contact with her relatives. She had also reportedly written the name of the persons who had battered her, and that information had reportedly been passed on to the police.

When the post-mortem was performed on Friday last, after three delays, it was found that the woman had sustained broken bones and had also been sexually assaulted. The police then acted on the first set of information they had received and had picked up the very person whom Cleotha Cox had pointed out to them.

Barrow was picked up on Saturday, and he confessed to battering the woman. He also reportedly told the police that he had battered the woman all by himself. That confession caused the police to keep the man in their custody while they released another man who had also been detained.
The unfortunate Magon Jones-Cox, also known as Jean Bernard, was laid to rest on Saturday last.