– was found in room with decomposed body
THE accused in the Grove Squatting area murder trial was found guilty by a mixed jury and was sentenced to death yesterday at the Demerara Assizes.

Murder convict being escorted to prison to await his execution.

The judge summed up the evidence in about three hours and the jury took just over two hours to reach the unanimous verdict.

Mark Samuels was found guilty of the murder of his reputed wife Chandrawattie Lalla called Anjie.

Spectators in the court room were ordered to stand in silence as Justice James Bovell-Drakes announced the death sentence. Samuels took the sentence calmly.

The killing is said to have taken place between November 23 and 24, 2007. The condemned man who confessed to the crime was found lying in the same room on a mattress, not far from the decomposed body of his wife, which bore marks of violence.

It was the stench from the body that caused neighbours and the police to discover the decomposed body with protruding eyes.

When first questioned by the police, Samuels confessed to the crime, adding “I fed up wid she. I lashed she with a piece of wood. I killed she.”

But at his trial, Samuels changed his story and told the jury that the oral confession was a fabrication by the police.

He claimed, “My wife left home that weekend and said that she was attending her daughter’s birthday party. After she left, I too left home for Parika where I had drinks with some friends. When I returned home the following day, I noticed that my wife was in bed. When I observed her properly, I realised that she was dead.

As a consequence, I suffered from shock and did not know what happened afterwards until I found myself in the police station where a cop was guiding my hand as if drawing in order to get a statement from me.

After Prosecutor Ganesh Hira closed the Grove wife killing murder case, accused Mark Samuels said in his defence, “I did not kill my wife Chandrawattie – I went home and found her on the bed dead.”

According to the prosecution it was the stench of a foul smell coming from the house in the Grove Squatting area that led a neighbour and police to the home where the decomposed body of the woman was found on a bed covered with a blood-stained sheet.

Police Constable Paddy who first entered the house said he saw the accused Mark Samuels lying on the floor of the same room.

Therefore, he enquired from the accused the name of the woman and what had happened to her, when he (accused) blurted out “is my wife, I lashed her with a piece of wood – I killed her. I fed up with she.”

Under cross-examination, Paddy had told Defence Counsel Mr. Huckumchand that he had written an account of what the accused had told him in relation to the oral confession in the Station Diary. The witness undertook to produce the diary in court, but failed to do so, pointing out that the diary could not be located.

After the testimony of Constable Paddy, Prosecutor Hira closed the case for the prosecution resulting in Justice James Bovell-Drakes calling on the accused for a defence.

The accused Samuels after electing to make an unsworn statement from the dock where no one could question him, told the judge and jury that his reputed wife Chandrawattie Lalla called Anjie had informed him that that weekend she would be attending her daughter’s birthday.

The accused said that after the deceased left to attend the daughter’s birthday party he too left the home for some friends in Parika, with whom he had drinks.