A 70-year-old man was on Wednesday sentenced to 11-and-a-half years in prison for the April 24, 2013 killing of his stepdaughter, who he stabbed 21 times with a knife at their Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank Demerara (WBD) home.
Initially indicted for murder, Fitzroy Josiah pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of manslaughter, thereby admitting that he unlawfully killed 14-year-old Fenella Samuels.
The custodial sentence was handed down by Justice Navindra Singh at the High Court in Demerara. State Counsel Teriq Mohammed and State Counsel Natasha Bakker appeared for the prosecution, while Attorney-at-Law Mark Conway represented the confessed killer.
According to the facts of the case, Josiah resided with his stepdaughter and her mother at Best Foreshore at a location called Plastic City.
On the day in question, Josiah and his stepdaughter were involved in a heated argument over her refusal to obey the house rules he had set.
During the ordeal, Josiah threw a kerosene stove at the young girl and then stabbed her about the body.
An autopsy gave her cause of death as multiple stab wounds.
Following the killing, Josiah went into hiding. He was, however, apprehended by Police after he was spotted in the Vreed-en-Hoop area.
The Prosecutors urged the court to impose a sentence that would reflect the nature and gravity of the crime. They described the teenager’s killing as “senseless”.
In the end, Justice Singh imposed the 11-and-a-half-year prison term. The Judge ordered that the time Josiah spent on remand pending trial be deducted from the sentence by the prison authorities.
