Michael Anthony Persaud was yesterday sentenced to 83 years imprisonment for the 2011 murder of his 19-year-old wife in their Sophia home.
The 24-year-old man was found guilty of the capital offence by a 12-member jury and was escorted out of the courtroom as his five-year-old son looked on.
Justice Navindra Singh, who presided over the trial, started his sentence at 60 years imprisonment but added on 10 years for premeditation, 10 years for cruelty and manner and 6 years for domestic violence. Three years were deducted for the time Persaud spent in prison.
Persaud had been on trial for the murder of Maduri Padumdeo, 19, of Lot 8 North Sophia. In December 2011, Padumdeo’s body was discovered naked in the bedroom of her 10×10 apartment, with a black and white wire wrapped around her neck.
Her landlady, Dataday Doodnauth, who was living in the adjacent apartment, had called a nearly police station with a domestic violence report after she saw Padumdeo being dragged into the apartment by her husband.
Doodnauth testified that as Persaud forcibly dragged his wife into the apartment, Padumdeo was screaming for someone to call the police. But after he carried her into the house, she heard no other sound.
Doodnauth said she quickly called the police.
Senior State Counsel Judith Gildharie-Mursalin said in her closing arguments that there can only be one verdict—guilty. She said Persaud had claimed that he loved his wife but “his wife did not love him; that’s why he killed her.”
She said Padumdeo had told Persaud that she did not love him anymore and that she was in love with Chanderpaul, her employer, who ran a cane juice stall on the East Coast Railway Embankment.
She said, “He can’t get her, no one will get her. What kind of love is that? Persaud told Sharda (Padumdeo) that he would kill himself if she left him but instead he killed her—he didn’t have the guts to follow through to kill himself.
“Sharda was becoming empowered to speak out!” she continued, as Persaud wiped his wet eyes with a handkerchief. “The fact of this case is that he knew Sharda was moving on and he couldn’t handle it so he took that wire and strangled her.”
Pointing to Persaud, she added, “This accused murdered Sharda…I trust that you will consider all the evidence and act accordingly,” she told the jurors. “There can only be one verdict—guilty!”
During his summing up, Justice Singh implored the jury to deliver a verdict without sympathy or prejudice.
Persaud swore that he had no knowledge of the murder, as he sought to cement his innocence during his address to the court. “I love my wife and I would never kill her… I have a five-year-old son and I would like to be back in his life,” he pleaded.
However, when the jury returned from their chambers with the guilty verdict, Persaud was quick to beg for mercy.
In his caution statement, Persaud had said that he locked their apartment door from outside and jumped in through a window and lay down with Padumdeo. He denied killing her.
He told the police that he had cut his finger to “prove his love for her”. The police officer testified in the court that when they awakened Persaud, he had spoken very fluently to them.
Chanderpaul had testified that the day before the murder, the three of them were returning from an occasion on the East Coast Demerara when his car broke down. He said they decided to stay the night at a hotel until morning.
Eventually, he said they fixed the car, and he dropped the couple off at their home in Sophia. Later that morning when he called Padumdeo’s cell phone it was turned off. He said Padumdeo had been working with him for six months and when he did not get her on the phone, he tried her husband’s phone, but that too was turned off.
He said he drove to the house and saw the door padlocked, and blood on the ground. The landlady called out to him and told him that the couple had a fight in the yard and Persaud had dragged Padumdeo into the apartment.
Chanderpaul testified that he entered the house and pulled the blind to the bedroom, where he saw Padumdeo’s naked body sprawled on the bed. He noticed a wire tied around her neck, while Persaud was lying on the other side of the bed.
“What did you do to the girl?” Chanderpaul recalled asking Persaud, who had a cut on his finger. He said Persaud stated that he did nothing.
Persaud’s relatives cried when they heard the verdict and sentence and his father and mother were seen comforting him before police escorted him away.
