Mechel Skeete was found guilty of the lesser count of manslaughter by the mixed Berbice Assizes jury which turned in a unanimous verdict after deliberating for some two and a half hours.
Skeete, who was dressed in a white blouse and a black and white skirt, remained impassive as the jury foreman read the verdict.
Justice Winston Patterson, before whom Skeete’s case was heard, ordered a probation report and deferred sentencing to March 4.
The case for the prosecution presented by State Counsel Dionne Mc Cammon was that on May 14, 2006, Skeete’s reputed husband Lincoln Gilead was severely burnt as he lay in his bed in the home they shared.
According to the prosecution, Gilead awakened one Edith Clarke and related something to her and was taken to the New Amsterdam Hospital; he was burned over 75% of his body.
Gilead was transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he subsequently died, and the cause of death was recorded as septic burns and bronchial pneumonia.
In closing arguments, Mc Cammon told the jury that the prosecution had satisfied the elements of the case: that it was the accused who had inflicted the injuries on the deceased; that Gilead died as a result of those injuries; and that he died within a day and a year of receiving those injuries.
She said the injuries were inflicted with the intent to kill Gilead or cause him grievous bodily harm, and that the act was not done in self defence, provocation nor was it an accident.
When he addressed the jury, Skeete’s lawyer Charrandas Persaud argued that his client was innocent of the charge as there was no evidence to prove that she had a motive to commit such a dastardly act. “There was no malice aforethought,” he argued.
In addition, he said, there was no confrontation between his client and Gilead, although they were both at the New Amsterdam Hospital, when she was arrested.
Skeete, who opted to give a statement from the dock, said she had fallen in love with Gilead at first sight and they had shared a common-law relationship for 18 years, which produced four children.
Protesting her innocence, the accused said her deceased husband was burned when a curtain caught fire and spread to the bed. She said that at first she was confused when she saw the fire and then attempted to put it out using a pillow. In the process, she sustained burns as well.
She said that when the pillow did not work, Gilead urged her to “get some water to out” the fire.
“He got burnt and neighbour Babulall along with my son took him to the hospital. But when I got there the Black Clothes police took me to the station. I went there in company of my brother Claude Skeete and son Deon Gilead. I remained at Central Police Station for three days before being charged,” she added.
Meanwhile, the State’s case relied mainly on the testimony of Detective Sergeant Charles Browne who had related that the prisoner had told him, that because of existing domestic problems, she lit her husband afire.
The oral statement was admitted, following a voir dire, which was triggered after Defence Counsel Persaud objected to its admissibility, stating that it had been obtained through a breach of the Judges’ Rule.
However, Justice Patterson overruled the submissions and admitted the oral statement.
Another witness for the state, Harold Gilead, brother of the deceased attested to responding to a telephone call and then going to the New Amsterdam Hospital where he saw his sibling lying on a stretcher with injuries to his feet, abdomen and hands.
Gilead recalled speaking to his brother and the doctor who subsequently transferred him to the Georgetown Hospital.
Under cross-examination, the witness said he had received a phone call from a neighbour, and thereafter had seen the prisoner near his brother’s hospital bed. She was crying, he said.
But, in response to questions from the jury, Gilead said, that when he arrived at the hospital his injured brother said, “You see what Mechel do to me”.
The lone defence witness, Claude Skeete, had testified to instructing the prisoner not to give a statement to the police in relation to the then accusation of wounding.
