Melroy Doris now awaits sentencing following a guilty plea to manslaughter for the 2014 killing of Lusignan beautician Ashmini Harriram.
Doris had been originally indicted for murder, but threw himself at the mercy of the court yesterday afternoon, pleading instead to the lesser offence.
Justice Brassington Reynolds before whom the matter was called has, however, deferred sentencing to March 25th for a probation report.
Doris had been jointly charged with the capital offence along with Lennox Wayne called ‘Two Colours.’
At yesterday’s hearing, however, Prosecutor Tyra Bakker made an application for the indictment to be severed.
Wayne remains on remand awaiting trial for the murder.
Just recently Wayne applied to the High Court to be granted bail while it considers his application for the capital charge against him to be stayed, arguing that his right to a fair and timely hearing has been violated.
That Fixed Date Application (FDA) is still pending.
Both men had faced trial for the young woman’s murder back in 2017 but they were awaiting a retrial after a jury was unable to reach a verdict.
It is because the matter is yet to be retried four years later, that Wayne has filed the FDA before the High Court.
When the manslaughter charge was read to him yesterday, however, Doris accepted that he unlawfully killed Harriram called “Monesha,”no July 10th, 2014, at Lusignan Railway Embankment, East Coast Demerara.
Doris, a former taxi driver, according to a caution statement (CS) that he did not deny giving to the police, had said that on the day in question, he was hired by a person to be transported to Lusignan.
Upon arrival in the area, Doris said that he and the person who hired him, passed two girls at a corner, at which point he was asked to stop the vehicle.
According to Doris’ statement, which had been read to the court during the first trial, after the vehicle came to a halt, the man who hired him whipped out a gun, exited the car, and shot one of the two girls.
It was Harriram who was fatally wounded.
Doris had said that after the shooting, the man returned to the car, placed the gun to his head, and ordered him to drive.
Prosecutor Bakker said that Doris had confessed to being the “getaway driver.”
She said an autopsy revealed that Harriram died as a result of respiratory failure and gunshot injury to the spine.
Doris is being represented by defence attorney Stanley Moore SC.
