Former Prison Warder, Sheldon Prince today pleaded guilty to stabbing his wife to death on December 28, 2016, at the National Psychiatric Hospital.
Prince, of Lot 40 Stanleytown, New Amsterdam, was charged with murdering his wife, Lonette Nicholson-Prince, 23, at the hospital, Fort Canje, Berbice. He was committed to stand trial following the completion of a preliminary inquiry at the magistrate’s court.
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When he appeared today before Justice Sandil Kissoon at the High Court in Berbice, the man, who was represented by attorney-at-law Murseline Bacchus, pleaded guilty. He will return to court on March 1, for sentencing.
Lonette, 23, of Lot 11 Levi Dam, Angoy’s Avenue, New Amsterdam who was a hairdresser at the Psychiatric Hospital, had just arrived at work on the day in question, when Prince, who at the time was a prison warder at the Mazaruni Prison, launched the attack.
State Prosecutor, Abigail Gibbs in presenting the state’s case following the plea, said, that Lonette, a mother of a three-year-old, proceeded to her workplace not knowing that would have been her last day at work, “more so, her last day on earth.”
On the said morning around 8 am, after Lonette proceeded to a location in the National Psychiatric Hospital, a colleague (an eyewitness) proceeded behind her after noticing how she appeared to be. “The door to this room was pushed in but it was not secured with a lock”, Gibbs disclosed.
Around 8.30 am the said morning, the accused rushed into the said room and demanded to speak with the woman. “This accused collected a chair and placed it next to Lonette, he then asked the deceased ‘wah a tell you?’ and she did not respond.”
Lonette’s colleague who was still in the room at the time observed that “something was wrong and that Lonette according to her was looking cold” as such she encouraged Lonette to step outside.
However, when Lonette got up the accused told her “let’s us talk” but she replied that there was nothing to talk about telling him “is so you does push and come in?”
Gibbs said that the “…accused at that time pulled a shine blade measuring about a foot in length from his pants waist and proceeded to stab Lonette in her upper chest.”
The colleague started to scream causing the accused to rush over to her but she ran through the door in search of help. After the screams, another staffer of the institution ran into the room where he was also confronted by the accused causing him to rush over to another room for safety.
Gibbs said the accused then escaped after which the police were informed.
On the following day, the accused turned himself over to the police.
According to Gibbs, the woman’s cause of death was given as shock and haemorrhage and stab wounds to the heart. The court also heard that the woman sustained 15 stab injuries, as Gibbs listed the details of each wound.
After the extent of the injuries were read, Prince, who appeared via Zoom, began tearing up and shaking his head in disbelief.
Gibbs also stressed that at the time of the incident Lonette was in possession of a restraining order preventing the accused from making contact with her.
Following the incident in 2016, Lonette’s father, Michael Nicholson had told Stabroek News that his daughter arrived at work sometime around 8 am.
“While going over the road at the junction from TI (NA Technical Institute) I saw him there”, the distraught father had said.
The man had noted that when he returned home, he told his wife that he had seen the accused, and subsequently, he received a message that his daughter had been attacked and killed. “When we rushed to the hospital, me reach me daughter lie down on the ground, when dem check her, she got fifteen stab wounds”, Nicholson had said.
According to him, the couple had gotten married some five years prior to the incident, and had always had marital arguments. He noted that he had even bought the couple a house at the back of Levi Dam, Angoy’s Avenue, so that they could live separately from him and his wife.
He said that the fights were about the accused never holding a steady job and always keeping known drug users as close friends.
Nicholson said that a few months before the incident, an argument between the couple escalated and the accused hit his daughter in her head, and it was then that the woman decided to call it quits on her marriage.
“I take she to the station, from the station dem end up in court. Then he lawyer beg her lawyer to ask her to drop the case, that he gon leave she alone, and sign she divorce and thing”. The man at this time had pointed out that his son-in-law had threatened to kill his daughter on numerous occasions.
“About two weeks (before the incident) he sent a text that when she do catch she self, he gone deh right up to her and he know what he gone do”, the father had relayed.
