Four sentenced for Grenadian's murder in 2005

FOUR men were yesterday sentenced to varying prison terms for the parts they played in the murder of Grenadian foreman Ignatius Henry Antoine in 2005.

Antoine was stabbed in the neck and buried in a shallow grave close to his home by the men who robbed him of $300.

According to the prosecution’s case, Antoine was also raped.

The four - David Noel, John Phillips, Cody Nickie and Joel McHutchinson - pleaded guilty to felony murder on June 5, after a Maximum Sentence Indication (MSI) hearing at which they were told by Justice Althea Alexis they would each likely receive a 31-year prison sentence.

Although all four played no part in killing Antoine, they either participated as lookouts when the foreman was being robbed and beaten on the head with a stone by their cohorts, or participated in digging the three-foot-deep hole in which he was buried sometime between August 31 and September 6, 2005, close to his home at Picton Road, Laventille.

Noel, Phillips, and Nickie each received a sentence of eight years, two months and three weeks while McHutchinson was sentenced to seven years, ten months and three weeks.

In sentencing the men, Alexis said the attack on Antoine was unprovoked, premeditated, deliberate and in pursuit of financial gain.

Antoine was robbed of $300 which the men shared, except for Phillips who did not get any of the money.

When police were digging up Antoine’s body, cement was found two and a half feet in the hole.

The body, which was buried three feet in the hole, was wrapped in a sheet. Antoine’s feet were bound together at the ankles with a curtain rod.

The four men were represented by attorneys Ian Brooks, Keith Scotland, Susan Kalipersad and Akil Khan.