After brutally chopping his wife to death in 2016 and later admitting to the gruesome crime, 44-year-old Althone Pitt, formerly of Chelsea Park, Mahaica, East Coast Demerara, was on Wednesday sentenced to 22 years behind bars by Justice Jo-Ann Barlow at the Demerara High Court.
Pitt was initially slapped with a murder charge, but opted to plead guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter and a wounding charge earlier this month when he made his first court appearance. The indictment read that on June 1, 2016, he unlawfully killed 31-year-old Candacy Pitt.
Reports are that on June 1, 2016, the now dead woman and her cousin, Brenda Thomas, 54, who were working with Home Safe Security Firm, were performing duties at the Bygeval Secondary School when Pitt turned up and requested to speak to his wife.
According to reports, given previous threats Pitt made to his spouse, Thomas refused to give him access and it was then he carried out the gruesome attack.
He first dealt two blows to Thomas and then proceeded to chop his wife, who was in the guard hut.
His wife attempted to escape by running out of the school’s premises, but owing to her injuries she collapsed a short distance away as the now convicted man continued to chop her about the body until she died.
After committing the act, Pitt turned up at the Mahaica Police Station where he confessed to the murder and handed over the murder weapon.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Justice Barlow handed down the 22-year sentence together with an eight-year sentence for wounding Thomas. The Judge ordered that the sentences run concurrently and that Pitt be given counselling while in jail.
The man was represented by Attorney-at-Law Adrian Thompson while the State was represented by Prosecutor Sarah Martin.
