‘Horn’ made me kill my wife

Under cross-examination by State attorney Joy Balkaran, Cadette said that was the only reason why he killed his wife.

Cadette said he never felt like killing his wife when he found the telephone number of her ex-boyfriend in the pocket of her jeans.

Two weeks later, he said he saw his wife speaking on the phone and when he asked her about it, she said nothing. "I became angry, but not to the point to start an argument. I became angry when I found the telephone number in her pants pocket. I did not kill her when I found the phone number."

Cadette said when his wife told him she did not want to have sex with him again, he became angry. "It hurt inside. I tried not to blow it up to make a big issue. I did not feel like killing her then."

Cadette, 42, is before Justice Anthony Carmona in the Port-of-Spain Fourth Criminal Court charged with the murders of his wife Grace Barbour-Cadette and one-year-old son Jabari on March 10, 2002, at Roxborough Street, Diego Martin.

State attorneys Kathy-Ann Waterman-Latchoo and Balkaran are prosecuting, while Hayden St Clair Douglas and Wendy Dougdeen-Bally appear for Cadette.

The defence closed its case yesterday. The attorneys will address the jury on Tuesday and Carmona indicated that he will sum up the case on Wednesday.

Speaking in an American accent, Cadette said he loved his son Jabari.

"I did not want anyone to hurt him.

I did not want anyone to say hurtful things to him. But that is not why I killed him."

He denied telling his friend Anisa Alexis that he killed Jabari because he did not want anyone telling his son that his father had killed his mother and that his father was in jail.

Cadette said Alexis, with whom he had confided, had lied about him.

He said the first time he heard this statement was at the preliminary inquiry at the Magistrates’ Court. He could not remember telling Alexis that he never meant to kill his wife.

Neither could he remember telling his friend that he chopped his wife when she started to laugh at him.

Cadette admitted telling Alexis that he pulled out the cutlass to frighten his wife as he had only intended to planasse her.

When asked about the chopping incident, Cadette could not say who was chopped first. In his statement to the police, the accused said he chopped Jabari by accident. He could not remember if his wife was holding Jabari when he was chopped.

Cadette said when his wife told him no more sex for him, he told her that statement "came like a visa gold card to exit my marriage."

He then moved out of Barbour-Cadette family home in Bagatelle, Diego Martin, and got his own apartment in Blue Basin.