Paul Lo Hing, who is accused of choking his girlfriend to death, yesterday told a judge and a jury that on the day she died, she went out and left him in their apartment. He said he never saw her again.
Lo Hing is on trial for the murder of Shoala Gilgeous, who was found dead in the E’ Field, Sophia residence they shared, in 2012.
Leading his defence through an unsworn statement yesterday, Lo Hing said both of them were at home when Gilgeous told him that she was going out. He said she left and never returned. He denied making calls that witnesses said he placed to them, alerting them to the woman’s condition. One of the witnesses, Gilgeous’ brother, Alain, testified that Lo Hing had called him and told him that Shoala was not breathing and he should carry her to the hospital. “I didn’t call anybody. I didn’t make any calls. I’m innocent,” Lo Hing, however, testified yesterday.
His lawyer, Hukumchand, called the prosecutor’s evidence “hearsay evidence at its best,” while stating that it was better for 99 guilty men be free than one innocent man be imprisoned. “You are left in reasonable doubt about who committed the crime,” he told the jurors as he closed his case.
State attorney Natasha Backer, however, argued that there was enough evidence to convict. She charged that no one saw Shoala leave the apartment and that it was strikingly unusual that someone would have their loved one in such a condition and not help them. “Instead, he sat and called the witnesses to check on her,” she said.
She added that the only reason the witnesses went to the apartment was because they received phone calls from Lo Hing. She said not once was it suggested to the witnesses that the calls did not happen. “What Paul Lo Hing said here today is a little too late… members of the jury this is a serious case; let’s not make a mockery out of it. Shoala was a mother and sister,” she said, pleading with them to “see the facts as they were.”
A verdict is expected to be handed down today.
