After fourth trial, man found guilty of killing woman

A ST Andrew man has been convicted a second time for shooting a woman to death, metres from the August Town Police Station 13 years ago.

The 5-2 guilty verdict was handed down in the Home Circuit Court last Thursday and marked the end of the fourth murder trial for Machel Gouldbourne. He was convicted for shooting Glenda Simpson several times inside her home in August Town, St Andrew, in November 2005.

“A long time you fi dead, gyal,” Simpson’s sister, Sunji Marrett, said she overheard Gouldbourne saying after the shooting. But, once again, the convicted killer is not going away without a fight and has signalled, through his attorney, Valerie NeitaRobertson, that he intends to challenge his latest conviction.

“The witness lied in several important aspects. I don’t think she was reliable; she was manifestly unreliable,” NeitaRobertson told The Gleaner on Tuesday, in reference to Marrett, the main prosecution witness.

Gouldbourne first went on trial in 2008, but that was aborted after one of the jurors reportedly visited the scene of the shooting and took pictures that were shared with other jurors.

At the end of his second trial in April the following year, a jury found Gouldbourne guilty and he was later sentenced to life in prison, and ordered to serve 35 years before being eligible for parole.

But just over a year later, the conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal, which ordered that “in the interest of justice,” Gouldbourne should get a new trial.

The third trial ended with a hung jury after the 12-member panel voted 7-5 in favour of a conviction.

Paula Llewellyn, the nation’s chief prosecutor, said Gouldbourne’s latest conviction sends a signal that “the justice system is alive and well, notwithstanding the various challenges.”