The Guyana Court of Appeal will this morning render its ruling in an appeal filed by Mahaica, East Coast Demerara (ECD) resident Rupert Browne who is challenging a death sentence imposed on him for the May 29, 2011 murder of his wife Seema Singh.
Following a trial at the Demerara High Court in 2014, a jury found Browne called “Bird Man” guilty of the offence. Justice Brassington Reynolds then sentenced the convicted killer to death by hanging. But Browne would later appeal his conviction and sentence.
In his Notice of Appeal, the death row inmate among other things is contending that Justice Reynolds
made several errors during the trial proceedings which renders his conviction unsafe. In the circumstances, he is asking that his conviction and sentence be set aside.
Singh, a mother of two, was brutally murdered at Helena Number One Village, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara. According to reports, Singh, who hailed from Richmond, Essequibo Coast, Region Two (Pomeroon-Supernaam), was stabbed multiple times about her body.
It was reported that Browne became enraged after the woman left their Mahaica residence to visit her children in Essequibo. The woman had promised to return within a certain time, but when she did not, Brown went in search of her. The man eventually caught up with his wife at a relative’s house in Mahaica, where she had sought refuge.
It was reported that Browne pleaded with the woman to return home, and when she said no, he stabbed her several times about the body. The injured woman was rushed to the Mahaicony Cottage Hospital but was transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospital where she succumbed.
During his trial, Browne had given an unsworn statement from the prisoner’s dock in which he denied attacking and killing his spouse. He had claimed that he went to visit his wife on the day in question and found her lying in bed in a pool of blood.
