Trial heard of domestic abuse, unresponsive police
Karlene Alexander fell on her knees and wept before Justice Winston Patterson in the High Court yesterday minutes after a jury freed her of the charge of murdering her reputed husband, Kenneth Harris three years ago at their East Bank home during a domestic spat.
The unanimous verdict came after three weeks of an emotional trial that drew attention to the issue of domestic violence. Alexander was portrayed as a woman who constantly suffered abuse during her six- year relationship with Harris.
Though the jury unanimously acquitted her on the murder charge it returned a not guilty verdict on the lesser count of manslaughter with a division of eleven to one.
Alexander’s attorney, Mark Waldron yesterday called the decision a “lose-lose” one. He said that while Alexander was free to rebuild the life she once had with her five-year-old son, the child’s father is no longer around. However, Waldron declared that domestic violence must be a front-burner issue for the administration because of “its devastating impact on the society”.
Waldron said that the system is failing women every day and pointed out that his client was freed only a few days after three women had been brutally murdered, allegedly at the hands of men. He said more needs to be done to address the issue and declared that “it has got to stop”.
The prosecution’s case which had set out to prove Alexander as a murderer suffered when details emerged of her running to the station repeatedly and making reports about her husband that were never followed up or acted upon. Her unsworn statement from the dock about her life as a victim trapped in a relationship because of love and for the sake of a child also appeared to have swayed jurors.
“I didn’t intend to kill Kenneth your honour… during the six years we were together I suffered abuse. Kenneth would hit me often even during my pregnancy and one time I ended up in hospital after he lashed me in my head with a chair”, a tearful Alexander told the jury from the dock.
She told a story of meeting Harris and falling in love but suffering soon after. Alexander said she remained in the situation despite warnings from her family. On the night Harris was killed, she said, he was beating her because “I answer he short”.
Alexander admitted that she stabbed Harris on the night of the incident but insisted that it was an accident. She said that they were fighting that night and Harris was beating her to return the keys to the rented apartment. According to her, she went into the kitchen and picked up a knife to take the keys off the key chain when Harris confronted her and tried to take away the knife. She said that he was injured during the tussle for the knife.
Throughout the trial witnesses, mostly police officers, testified about the incident that night, but no one could say what happened inside the home. One officer even recalled that after Alexander was arrested she had to be taken to the hospital to seek medical care because she was in physical pain.
Waldron had criticized the police during cross-examination saying that they wrapped up the investigation into the murder in one night and never paid any attention to the emotional state his client was in. He said that Alexander was in dire need of counseling at that time but no one looked into that.
Alexander, a former police officer, was living with Harris at Prospect, East Bank Demerara a few months before the incident. Harris, age 44 years, worked at the Guyana Power and Light.
State counsel Dianna Boyan and Kara Duff-Yehudah appeared for the prosecution while Waldron appeared in association with attorney-at-law Rushelle Liverpool for Alexander.