Thirty-year-old Cobina Barker also known as Alex Barker, who had been a fugitive for more than a year, was yesterday placed before the courts charged with the murder of his former wife Roselaine Hall.
It is alleged that between January 30 and the middle of March 2008 at Yarrowkabra, Barker murdered Roselaine Hall, the owner of the Alpha Hotel.
The miner was not required to plead to the indictable charge when Acting Chief Magistrate Melissa Robertson read it to him.
He was remanded to prison until July 15 and his matter was transferred to the Providence Magistrate’s Court.
Hall was last seen leaving a hairdressing salon on January 30. According to initial reports reaching Stabroek News, Barker, who was her chauffeur, picked her up and she went back to her hotel where she collected $22,000 from the cashier and left with the man.
Her husband Romeo Rockerfeller had told this newspaper that Barker had contacted him and informed him of the location of the woman’s car which was found at Parika in late January.
He had also said that he saw Barker boarding a vessel at Parika and he had told him that he was looking for the woman. Barker, who was also employed by Hall as the hotel’s painter, had told staff a day after she disappeared that she had gone to Suriname and that he had received a power of attorney, which gave him control over the business until she returned.
He then made changes at the hotel, firing staff and hiring new ones.
Hall had gone missing last year for over a month, before she was finally discovered dead.
A wanted bulletin was subsequently issued for Barker, who had also gone missing.
Hall’s mother, Joyce McPherson-Hall had told Stabroek News that she called her daughter’s cellular phone but would only hear her voice on her voice mail.
McPherson-Hall had contended then that it seemed as though her daughter had been murdered and the police could not find her body, neither could they find Barker.
Hall had begun living in Guyana in 2004 following the murder of her father Byron Dick, who was the original owner of several Alpha Hotel outlets.
Staff members of the hotel as well as Hall’s mother had confirmed that she suffered abuse at the hands of her then husband.
After divorcing Barker, Hall had married Rockerfeller. According to McPherson-Hall, her daughter was also in the process of completing a divorce from Rockerfeller.
Rockerfeller was also held and questioned by police following the woman’s disappearance but had been released. He was subsequently placed before the courts on charges relating to the falsifying of travel documents.
He was reportedly out of the country at the time the woman went missing and it was he who contacted the woman’s mother in the US to advise her of the situation.
Hall’s mother said prior to that telephone call she had never even heard the voice of her son-in-law.
