Men receive death sentence for triple murder
A jury in Trinidad has sentenced two men to death by hanging for killing three people, one of them a former BBC anchorwoman, during a robbery.
The jury in Port-of-Spain deliberated for an hour before delivering a guilty verdict against Daniel Agard, 21, and Lester Pitman, 26. The death sentence was announced shortly afterwards.
The verdict came seven days after the London-based Privy Council reversed its 2003 ruling that Trinidad’s mandatory death penalty for murder convictions was unconstitutional. The Privy Council serves as the final court of appeals for many former British colonies in the Caribbean.
Shortly before the verdict was announced, the judge asked the defendants if they had anything to say. Pitman replied that he was innocent. Agard said he had nothing to say.
The victims’ relatives cried when the verdict was announced. They declined to comment afterwards, as did relatives of Agard and Pitman.
The victims in the December 2001 murders were Agard’s great grandmother, Maggie Lee, 83, her daughter Lynette Lithgow Pearson, 51, and John Cropper, 59, Lee’s son-in-law.
Agard and Pitman allegedly gave police statements implicating themselves but later said police concocted the statements and coerced them into signing by promising them immunity.
Police insisted the statements were made voluntarily.
Lithgow was a former anchor for the BBC. Cropper, who was married to Lee’s other daughter, Angela Cropper, was a British-born agricultural consultant living in Trinidad. Angela Cropper was away from Trinidad on a business trip when her relatives were killed.
Police found the victims with their throats slit in Cropper’s home. Two television sets, a gold ring, two gold chains, a laptop computer and a car were among the stolen items. The murders occurred after the family held a tea party.
Police found a fingerprint on a jewellery box in the house matching Agard’s. Jurors were also shown a surveillance video of Agard withdrawing money from Cropper’s bank account in the days after the murders.
A neighbour of the Croppers testified that she saw Pitman outside the house on the evening of the murders.
Agard allegedly told police that he and a man named ”Cudjoe” robbed the house. He said he had left the house with some of the stolen goods when Cudjoe killed the victims.
But Pitman allegedly told police that Agard killed the three after they both robbed the house. Pitman did not mention Cudjoe in his statement. Police said they searched for Cudjoe but could not find him.
Trinidad has not hanged anyone since 1999.
The Privy Council has blocked several executions in recent years, but last week, it found that automatic death sentences for convicted murderers was not in breach of Trinidad’s constitution.
