Couple pleads guilty to killing former PNM MP

A 21-YEAR-OLD maid and her 22-year-old boyfriend, jointly charged with the 2001 murder of former PNM MP for Pt Fortin Roy Richardson, 75, yesterday pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter (causing unlawful death), which was  accepted by the State, during the start of the trial at the San Fernando High Courts.

Estina Bedasie and her boyfriend Rocky Mohammed were to have gone on trial for Richardson’s murder in the Third Criminal High Court before Justice Malcolm Holdip. After they were arraigned before Justice Holdip, in which the charge of murder was read, Bedasie and Mohammed pleaded not guilty to murder, but guilty to manslaughter. In outlining the facts, State attorney Brambhanan Dubay told Justice Holdip that both accused persons confessed to police to killing Richardson because “they were desperate for money.”

Bedasie invited her boyfriend into Richardson’s home on the morning of Friday, June 1, 2001. They crept into Richardson’s study room and knocked. When Richardson opened the door, Mohammed struck him with a frying pan. He fell unconscious and Bedasie stabbed him in the eye with a knife. Dubay told the court that Mohammed then took the knife and stabbed Richardson twice in the abdomen. In statements to the police confessing to the murder, both accused persons said they were desperate for money. After the killing, Bedasie and Mohammed stole three bracelets from the house. Bedasie and Mohammed, lived in a private lodging house on Mitchell Street, Point Fortin. Richardson, an attorney, was found dead in the study, of his home at Clifton Hill, Point Fortin, on the morning of Saturday June 2, 2001.

Richardson had been MP for Pt Fortin during the no-vote campaign in 1971. He served as parliamentary representative for the area from 1971 to 1976, but during the first two years, Richardson defected and crossed the floor with two other PNM representatives. He became the Opposition leader until 1976. Richardson left politics and retired to his Point Fortin home where he occasionally practised law. Justice Holdip yesterday ordered a Probation Officer’s report on both accused. He postponed hearing for November 24, when he will hear pleas in mitigation from Mohammed’s defence attorney Gilbert Peterson and Bedasie’s lawyers, Prakash Ramadhar and Brian Dabideen, before a decision is made on sentencing.