A MIXED 12-member jury was, on Wednesday, empanelled before Justice Jo-Ann Barlow at the Demerara High Court for the trial of Phillip Suffrein, who is accused of killing two elderly women during a home invasion in 2017.

Suffrein, 28, denied that, between October 2 and October 3, 2017, at Lot 243 South Road and Albert Street, he unlawfully killed Constance Fraser, 89 and Phyllis Caesar, 77, during a robbery.
The trial is expected to commence on June 1, 2022.

The Guyana Chronicle had reported that the two pensioners were found lying face down in separate bedrooms at their home on October 3, 2017, with their hands and feet bound and mouths gagged.
According to a relative, the house was ransacked and quite a few items appeared to be missing. Reports from the police revealed that a door to the upper half of the two-flat building was breached.

Relatives said it was the third time the women had been robbed, with one recalling that during the last incident, the intruders had made off with cellular phones and money.
It was also the second time the elderly women had been robbed after receiving their monthly pensions.

Government Pathologist, Dr. Nehaul Singh gave the cause of death of both women as asphyxiation due to suffocation and manual strangulation, compounded by trauma to the head.