Delon Gordon, the man charged with killing his wife by setting her afire in their Better Hope, East Coast Demerara home, was yesterday found guilty of her murder.
After the 12-member jury returned with a guilty verdict, Gordon, visibly stunned, stated that he was feeling faint and needed to sit. Justice Navindra Singh, who is presiding over the matter, granted his request and asked him whether he had anything to say.
“I’m innocent!” were the only words he muttered before his lawyers Raymond Alli and Dawn Holder made an application on his behalf for a probation report.
Justice Singh accepted their application and ordered that one be prepared by November 3 for sentencing.
Gordon was charged with the murder of Natasha Johnson in 2011, after their Better Hope home went up in flames and the mother of three succumbed at the Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH) to injuries she suffered in the fire.
Gordon set the house on fire with himself and Johnson and their three children inside.
During her closing remarks to the jurors, before they retired to deliberate, Senior State Counsel Judith Gildharie-Mursalin pleaded with them to consider the case as one of domestic abuse. She said Gordon showed no remorse for his actions and they should consider the circumstances under which Johnson died.
“Delon Gordon made her a human torch. She was abused, threatened and finally murdered by the man she loved. Only a sick, diabolical mind could light a woman afire with three little children in it. Tell me, how a man who loved her could hurt her so?” she asked.
Fourteen witnesses testified during the trial, including one who said that Gordon left the house to buy bread and when he returned he found himself locked out. The witness testified that Gordon climbed through a window, went into the kitchen and emptied kerosene into a bowl. The witness stated that Gordon then carried the bowl into the bedroom and tossed it on Johnson before he threw a lighter on her.
Johnson’s neighbour Mellisa Fraser testified that Johnson ran out of the house covered in flames. She stated that “flesh was falling from her body” as she ran to her and ran down the street screaming, “Delon why you do this to me!”
Johnson’s mother, Ingrid Delph had testified that Gordon had threatened to kill her daughter but she did not take his declaration seriously. “Her told me one day he was going to kill my daughter,” she stated.
She said on the day of the fire, she received a call from someone who told her to go to the GPH and when she arrived she saw her daughter burnt and wrapped in bandages. She stated that she went to see Gordon to ask him why he would “burn my [her] daughter” but all he told her was that a kerosene stove exploded and started the fire.
