Siblings lose appeal in murder of T&T national
BERMUDA’S COURT of Appeal has upheld the convictions of a pair of half-siblings, who were handed life sentences after being convicted last year of the “chilling and merciless”murder of a Trinidadian guest worker 15 years ago.
Katrina Burgess and Cleveland Rogers were both found guilty by the unanimous jury verdict of the premeditated murder of 32-yearold father of three Marcus Gibbings – Burgess’ former boyfriend.
An appeal was launched after a juror was reported to have told Marc Daniels, a lawyer involved in the trial, that several members of the jury reversed their decisions to avoid the need to stay overnight in a hotel.
But the Court of Appeal has ruled that the juror’s comments – and those of the jury foreman, who was interviewed about them – were inadmissible.
“Evidence produced only after the verdict of the jury has been given is inherently susceptible to inaccurate or warped recollection, which may be fashioned by a particular juror’s viewpoint,” said Sir Christopher Clarke, the appeal court president.
“Further, the process of determining what view, in the end, the jury actually took of the evidence is fraught with difficulty and may well have differed from juror to juror.
“This is exemplified in the present case by the acute differences between the evidence of Mr Daniels’juror and the foreperson and by the multiple questions to which the foreperson’s testimony gives rise both for her and the other 11 members of the jury.
“If this type of evidence were admissible, it is difficult to see how one could stop short of questioning the entire jury in a process which would potentially involve raising with each of them any alternative versions of events given by any others,” said Sir Christopher.
Gibbings was found dead in a pool of blood in an apartment on Derwent Lane in Devonshire parish in October 2006.
The court heard he had shared the apartment with Burgess until weeks before the murder, but was in the process of moving out.
A post-mortem revealed he had suffered multiple stab wounds, including one to his face and two to his chest, one of which hit his heart.
Prosecutors at the pair’s Supreme Court trial last year alleged that Burgess had paid Rogers US$5,000 to kill Gibbings after he cheated on her and ended their relationship.
The trial heard evidence from two witnesses – both former girlfriends of Rogers – who testified that he had confessed to the murder.
But they did not inform the police about the confessions until 2018 when Rogers was behind bars for an unrelated conviction for unlawful carnal knowledge of a 13-year-old girl.
The Supreme Court jury found Rogers and Burgess guilty of premeditated murder after five hours of deliberation and they were sentenced to serve at least 25 years in jail.
In a victim impact statement, Gibbings’ family had asked the court to show the defendants “no mercy” for their actions that left three children without their father.
Gibbings worked at a Hamilton communications firm as an engineer. He had lived in Bermuda for more than eight years at the time of his death.