Man sentenced for chopping girlfriend in drunken rage in 2010

AN Arima man who, in a drunken rage, chopped his girlfriend on the head and left her body at the side of the road on Blanchisseuse Road, Arima, after the two argued in 2010, has a little more than five months left to serve on his sentence.

Marlon St Martin, 62, of Olton Road, Arima, was before Justice Gail Gonzales charged with the murder of his girlfriend Helen Danlal Hosein on July 17, 2010. He was allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter on the basis of provocation after plea discussions with the State.

In sentencing him, the judge began with a sentence of 23 years, to which she applied a three-year downward adjustment for certain mitigating factors, including his age, previous good character, exemplary conduct in prison and his remorse for his actions. His attorney, public defender Michael Modeste, said it was not something he would have done if he wasn’t under the influence of alcohol.

Gonzales also applied a one-third discount for his guilty plea and deducted the 12 years, ten months and ten days from his sentencing, leaving him with five months and 20 days to serve.

According to the facts of the case, which were accepted by the defence, St Martin picked up Hosein at her home at Olton Road, where she told relatives she was going to lime, and would return the next day. She took clothing and a towel with her.

The couple went to a bar in Arima, where they had two drinks of puncheon rum, then to another bar at Calvary Hill, where they again had a couple of drinks of puncheon and beer.

Hosein told St Martin she wanted to go by family in Cumuto, but he refused, which annoyed her.

The couple left the bar sometime around 1 am, and while driving along Blanchisseuse Road, en route to Cumuto, Hosein began cursing St Martin because he refused to take her to her family in Cumuto when she asked. Both inebriated, the couple were cursing each other. St Martin intended to stop at another bar on the way to settle things, but he quarrelling worsened and he stopped the truck.

While reaching for her hand to calm her down, Hosein pulled away, got out of the truck and continued to curse St Martin for not taking her by her family.

St Martin then leaned forward to get out of the truck, took out a cutlass that was between the seats, lost his cool and “in a drunken rage,” began swinging the weapon in the dark, “without knowing whether it was the flat side or sharp side.”

He could not see where he was hitting Hosein, but knew the cutlass made contact approximately four times, and when he heard her screaming, “I sorry, I sorry,” he ran into the truck, flung the cutlass into the bush and drove towards Sangre Grande.

Police stopped him in Turure and took the keys to the truck. He was told they would be returned to him when he sobered up.

He was given a lift to the home of his employer, who questioned him about the truck’s location, but he kept saying, “Allyuh studying truck, I do something worse than that.”

There was a physical altercation between the two men and St Martin ran. The truck’s owner recovered the vehicle in Turure. The battery had been stolen.

Meanwhile, Hosein’s daughter reported her mother missing on July 18, 2010, when she did not return home.

When police went to St Martin’s home to question him, they smelled alcohol on his breath. When told he was a suspect in Hosein’s disappearance, he told officers, “Not me, officer. She has another man named Chris. He is the man, not me.”

Hours later, police found Hosein’s body in a river running alongside Blanchisseuse Road. with chop wounds to her hands and neck. An autopsy said she died from injuries due to chop wounds to the head.

Days later, St Martin assisted police by taking them to the various bars where he and Hosein stopped, and to Blanchisseuse Road, although he could not pinpoint where the chopping took place, as he said it was “real dark” that night.

He was then charged with Hosein’s murder.

Prosecutor Veonna Neale-Monroe represented the State.