2011 execution-style killing of Robb St granny: CCJ sets February 29 to hear convict’s appeal against 50-year jail sentence

The Trinidad-based Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) has set Thursday, February 29, 2024, as the date to hear a man’s appeal against his conviction and 50-year jail sentence for the 2011 murder of a Robb Street, Georgetown pensioner, Clementine Fiedtkou-Parris.
Trial Judge Navindra Singh of the Demerara High Court had sentenced appellant, Roy Jacobs, along with brothers Orwin and Cleon Hinds, to 81 years in prison each, with parole eligibility set at 45 years, after a jury found them guilty in 2015 of killing the 71-year-old woman.

However, the Court of Appeal of Guyana lowered their sentence to 50 years in April 2022 after finding that their initial sentence was too harsh but affirmed their convictions.
The ruling of the local appellate court was first appealed to the CCJ by the Hinds brothers.
Additionally, the regional Court last year affirmed their convictions but resentenced them to life in prison with the chance of parole only after 20 years of incarceration, including time spent detained while awaiting trial.
In affirming their convictions, the CCJ said that the guilty verdicts in their favour were primarily based on their written and oral confessions, and particularly in relation to Orwin, on the evidence of an eyewitness who identified him on an identification parade.
In its decision, the regional Court recalled the written statements of the brothers which set out the plan to kill Fiedtkou-Parris, the persons who were involved in that plan, how and where the killing was carried out, and by whom and the events which transpired after the killing, including the payment of money to the brothers. Thus, the Court found that there was nothing in the siblings’ grounds of appeal that could undermine the value and weight of their statements.
Jacobs subsequently filed an appeal and it will come up for hearing on February 29, 2024.
The fourth convict in the elderly woman’s murder, Kevin October, died in prison while awaiting the hearing of his appeal at the Court of Appeal. His appeal has since been discontinued.
The charge the men had faced detailed that, on June 30, 2011, they murdered Fiedtkou-Parris pursuant to an arrangement wherein money was intended to be passed from one person to another. The elderly woman was shot and killed on the night of June 30, 2011, at her residence.
It was reported that three men had gone to the woman’s home at Lot 42 Robb Street, Georgetown, asking for “Auntie”, and when the elderly woman emerged from her bedroom, one of them pulled out a gun and shot her several times in her upper body.
The men then fled the scene in a waiting motor car while the elderly woman was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital, where she was pronounced dead. It is believed that a bitter dispute over a property might have been the motive for her killing.
In its judgement, the CCJ said that Orwin described the plan that was hatched with his brother and two other men, “Dutchie” and “Blackboy” to kill the elderly woman, for a sum of money.
“Orwin said that he obtained a gun, gave it to Cleon who then lent it to “Blackboy”. He said that he and the other men went along with a driver to the deceased’s house and before the killing, he told the men that he wanted no part of it, but eventually was persuaded to go. He and “Dutchie” entered the house where they passed a man on the stairs. He said that Dutchie told him to restrain the man, which he did, and he then heard two shots. They left and heard the following day that Fiedtkou-Parris had died. Later that day, Orwin said that “Blackboy” gave him $80,000 and Cleon, $5000. In Cleon’s written statement, he confessed to being told about the payment to murder Fiedtkou-Parris, and his decision to lend the gun to the organisers to, “get in on the business”. He also said that he drove around the house after and collected money for the killing.
The CCJ had noted that the four men were offered about G$1.2 million to kill the elderly woman at the hearing on the brothers’ appeal and had inquired from the prosecutor as to whether there was an investigation to capture the person(s) who hired them.
Though an investigation was conducted, the prosecutor had informed the Court that it was unable to identify the person who ordered the woman’s killing. The information on the land transaction that led to Fiedtkou-Parris’s murder, she had said, is all in the hands of the State. Fitzroy Fiedtkou, the deceased woman’s brother, had testified during the trial and identified Jacobs as the gunman. (G1)