Court slashes trio’s 81-year jail time to 50 years

An 81-year jail term imposed in 2015 by High Court Justice Navindra Singh on Orwin Hinds, Cleon Hinds and Roy Jacobs for the murder of 71-year-old Clementine Fiedtkou-Parris in 2011 has been reduced to 50 years’ imprisonment by the Court of Appeal on Tuesday.
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 42 Robb Street, Georgetown home.
It was reported that three men had gone to the woman’s home asking for “Auntie”, and when the elderly woman emerged from her bedroom, one of them pulled out a gun and shot her several times to her upper body. The men then fled the scene in a waiting motorcar 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.
Following trial before Justice Navindra Singh in 2015, the four men were found guilty of the crime by a 12-member jury. Justice Singh had imposed the 81-year prison term on each of them, and had ordered that they do not become eligible for parole until after serving a minimum of 45 years.
However, their attorney had asked the Guyana Court of Appeal to quash their conviction and sentence.
The appeal was heard by Chancellor (ag) Justice Yonette Cummings-Edwards and Justices of Appeal Dawn Gregory and Rishi Persaud. The State was represented by Prosecutor Teshana James-Lake.
During her ruling, Justice Cummings-Edwards stated that the Court allowed the appeal in relation to the men’s sentence, but not their conviction.
She said the court found that the previously imposed sentence was manifestly excessive, even though she admitted that the crime was a “gruesome murder”.
The fourth suspect, Kevin October, reportedly died in prison.