Sixty-six-year-old Kubert George will spend the rest of his natural life in prison after he was found guilty yesterday of murdering his former partner Patricia Rose and was sentenced to 60 years in jail.
After a little over two hours deliberating on the case, the 12-member jury returned with the unanimous verdict of guilty in the High Court yesterday.
George was on trial for the murder of Rose, who died on May 8, 2009, after she was allegedly stabbed by him months earlier, on November 1, 2008.
Following the verdict, Justice Navindra Singh did not take any mitigating factors into consideration in handing down the 60-year sentence, despite a mitigating plea that was made by George’s attorney, Peter Hugh.
He was unmoved since he found that George’s actions were wilful, deliberate and premeditated and that his conduct demonstrated a disregard for human life.
Justice Singh told George that from his own words, he himself admitted that he went to Rose’s workplace with a knife in his hand. He also told him, “This is what you did to her. Only because she wanted some money, she grabbed your shirt.”
In handing down his sentence, Justice Singh noted that the objective of the death penalty would be better served with a term of years in prison and he then announced the sentence.
The prosecution’s case was based on George’s statement to the police, admitted as evidence in the trial, in which he confessed to stabbing Rose. George had told the police in his statement that he went to Rose’s work place and called for her. He said she answered and told him she “ain’t able get up, I must jump de gate and I jump de gate with my haversack containing a kitchen knife, food and other things.”
George also said in the statement that after he scaled the fence, he started to gaff with the woman, who asked him for some money. He said he told her that the money he has was to buy rations and kerosene.
Police said he claimed Rose scrambled his clothes and “I pull out de knife out a me bag and I juk she up plenty times about she body and face. I walk out after juking she up with the knife which is about six inches.”
However, in a sworn statement to the court on Tuesday, he stated that he did not confess to the crime and accused the police of fabricating the confession in the statement which he gave to them.
George had told the court that he recalled going to Rose’s workplace and jumping the gate with a knife in his hand. He had also said he and Rose then began talking and while he was about to leave, she held him back and asked him for some money.
George said a scuffle then ensued for about eight minutes between him and the woman after which she let go of him and he jumped back over the fence and escaped. However, about half an hour later, George said, he got a call from Rose’s daughter, Phonda, saying “you juk up ma mother.”
State prosecutor Konyo Thompson, who led the state’s case in association with Dhanika Singh, had questioned George about his confession statement he had given to the police but he claimed that the police made additions to the statement. He also stated that he only became aware of the additions to the statement at the Magistrate’s Court. “When I reach at the small court then I know what tek place. When a object to what she write in de statement [Magistrate] Hazel Hamilton tell me you done sign hey,” he had told the court.
Thompson also suggested to George that he had fabricated the story which he told to the court for sympathy. He had, however, denied the suggestion.
