Suspects for trial in April session of Demerara Assizes

THE trial for the murder of 75-year-old retired University of Guyana Professor Pairadeau Mars, is expected to come up during the sitting of the April session of the Demerara Assizes.

Currently on remand for Mars’s murder are Paul Chance, 20, Orin Anthony McRae and Andre Benjamin, 19, Nikita Dover, 18 and Naomi Adams, 17.

The five accused were committed to stand trial at the High Court by Magistrate Leron Daly when the preliminary inquiry (PI) ended at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court in 2017. The matter is yet to be given a date for a hearing at the High Court.

The indictment reads that the five accused on May 12, 2016, murdered Mars at his Lot 395, Bissessar Avenue, Prashad Nagar home, during a robbery.

Mars was killed by a gang of teens, who reportedly beat and bound him in his home on the day in question at about 18:30hrs. The professor was found in his home by his wife with his hands and feet duct-taped and with injuries to his head.

The house was ransacked, and a number of articles and cash were missing. He was pronounced dead on arrival at a private hospital. The five accused at that time were between the ages of 15 and 18 and reportedly confessed to the murder/ robbery while in police custody.

According to reports, the teens were known to Professor Mars and were arrested after neighbours observed the group leaving the retired professor’s residence with suitcases and entering a car.

Less than 24 hours after committing the crime, the teens were arrested by the police and a large sum of cash, a laptop computer, iPod and PlayStation that were taken from Mars’s home were recovered.

A post-mortem performed on Mars had revealed that death was due to manual strangulation, compounded by multiple fractures to the head and face.