JUSTICE James Bovell Drakes imposed a 21-year jail sentence on Colin Bentick for decapitating fellow villager Elon Shepherd, after narrating the aggravating factors and considering his period of confinement and his guilty plea. The dreadlocked prisoner showed no sign of emotion when the sentence was handed down yesterday afternoon, moments before the closure of the February 2012 sessions of the Criminal Assizes.
Prior to the sentence, the Judge ordered prison authorities to have a psychiatrist examine the convict periodically to aid in his mental health status, and that medication be dispensed accordingly.
After rehashing the State’s evidence, including the probation report on the background of the prisoner, the Judge, addressing the prisoner in the dock, opined that the witnesses, especially the children, may still be traumatised by the despicable act.
Addressing the aggravating factors, the Judge told the prisoner, “You used a spiff [a marijuana cigarette] a narcotic which aided in the prelude to your diabolical act. Your continuous inflicting of wounds on a helpless man; your failure to heed to the plea of four policemen who commanded you to stop; and your act was premeditated, rather than impulsive.
“The cannabis cigarette probably gave you a more feeling to commit the dastardly act. My view is that it was an aggravated factor. While he was helpless, you chopped at him; you intended at the minimum to cause grievous bodily harm. You paid the police no mind. You only stopped when his head was off. Your conduct was profoundly gross. Your choice of instrument was deliberate. At the end of the day, you set out what you intended to do, a sacrifice.”
The Judge noted an observation in Berbice: “Many persons live a long life, 70 years. The difference of the deceased age and his expected life span is 32 years. I reduce it by five years, the amount of time you have spent in prison. I will deduct six years for your guilty plea. I sentence you to twenty-one years.”
State Counsel Rhondel Weaver, relating the facts, said that on October 31, 2007, a group of persons, including the deceased and the star witness Kinte Reynolds, were sitting beneath an old house at Seafield Village, West Coast Berbice playing dominoes.
Kinte Reynolds knew Colin Bentick for over fourteen years prior to the incident.
Sometime between 12:00hrs and 13:00hrs on the said day, the accused went up to the deceased and said in the hearing of Kinte Reynolds, ‘Shepherd is a dead man’. The accused then asked Shepherd whether he knew about his [the accused] girlfriend, but Shepherd replied in the negative.
Bentick then took a cutlass and chopped Shepherd on his right hand, and it was at that stage Kinte Reynolds ran away, so that he did not see what followed.
Weaver related that another witness, a relative of the accused who was standing some distance away, along with two police officers, saw the accused chopping at something and at someone in a continuous manner with a cutlass.
More importantly, the two police witnesses were among the party of policemen in a Force vehicle that was passing the village on their way to Georgetown when their motor vehicle was stopped and they were alerted to the ensuing incident by a passerby.
The two police witnesses responded by entering the street of the incident on foot, and they saw Bentick chopping at a person lying in the street. According to the State Counsel, the accused was instructed by the ranks to “Stop! Police! Stop!’ but Bentick refused to comply.
When approached by one of the police officers from a distance of about twenty-six feet, Bentick advanced towards the police with the murder weapon – a cutlass – in hand. This caused the officer to retreat and leave the scene for assistance, while a rank remained some distance away from Bentick until Detective Corporal Winston Singh came with reinforcement and arrested the accused.
Before being arrested, the accused had severed Shepherd’s head from his body; and he remained at the scene, holding up the severed head in his left hand before throwing it to the ground.

ORAL ADMISSION
Upon his arrest at the crime scene, an allegation of murder was put to Bentick by Detective Corporal Winston Singh, followed by a caution, to which he replied, “I did chop and cut off Shepherd’s head.”
The confession statement explained that he was under a house with some individuals, named by aliases, where he learnt that Shepherd, known as ‘Fireman’, was a homosexual, and that he took a spiff [smoked a joint of marijuana] and went home for a cutlass before returning under the house’.
‘Fireman attempted to run and I chopped him on his left hand, left shoulder, on his head, his two feet, and he fell. I chopped him on his neck, chop after chop. Then I roll it off. I had to do a sacrifice’.
Meanwhile, in his report, Government Pathologist Dr. Vivikanand Brijmohan revealed that death of the thirty-eight-year-old Elon Shepherd was due to shock and haemorrhage due to severance of neck along with multiple cuts.
The pathologist said the deceased was a healthy male of African descent when he succumbed to injuries on October 31, 2007.