GEORGETOWN, Guyana (CMC) – A High Court judge has sentenced the 42-year-old mother of a secondary school student and her lover to more than 200 years in jail after they were found guilty of killing the child in 2010.
The court heard that the body of Neesa Lalita Gopaul, a former student of Queens College, was placed in a suitcase and dumped in a creek at the Emerald Tower Resort, Madewini Soesdyle-Linden Highway.
Her mother, Bibi Sharima Gopaul, and her lover 37-year-old Jarvis Small had denied the charges, pleading not guilty to the offence.
The trial, which began on February 2 and ended here on Thursday, had gripped this Caribbean Community (Caricom) country with the 12-member mixed jury returning a guilty verdict against the two.
Small, a father of three, who was sentenced to 96 years in prison, told the court that he had not received a fair trial.
“I think I got a media trial,” he said, adding that “prejudicial evidence” was let into the trial.
He also claimed that Justice Navindra Singh was “unfair and political in nature.
“No evidence has been presented in this case against me to find me or anybody else guilty of murder,” he said.
In sentencing the woman to 106 years in jail, Justice Singh said he couldn’t imagine what moved her to commit such an act.
“You lied about everything… this is your daughter… I can’t imagine what monster of a mother would kill their own child,” he said, telling the convicted woman that while she may not live to serve her entire sentence, he hopes she serves it wherever she goes.
The prosecution had argued that the teenager was killed September 23 and October 4, 2010, at the Emerald Tower Resort, in Madewini, Linden/Soesdyke Highway.
The prosecution said she had been strangled by Small who also bashed her head with a piece of wood.
The court heard that the body was later wrapped in a sheet before being placed in a suitcase where Small took it to the creek and used a pair of dumb-bells and a piece of red rope to anchor the suitcase under water.
The prosecution called 27 witnesses to support its case, and Small and Gopaul were both called upon to lead their defences after the trial judge had overruled no-case submission applications from their respective attorneys on Monday.