Jurors considering death or life sentence in teen’s killing

Jurors will begin deliberating today about whether Sanel Saint-Simon should be sentenced to death or to life in prison in the murder of 16-year-old Alexandria Chery, his longtime girlfriend’s daughter.

Testimony ended in the case Wednesday. Jurors heard from Saint-Simon’s ex-wife, who said he never helped her care for their two children, now 15 and 16 years old, and said his financial support was limited to $600 during the past 15 or so years.

“He was never asking me how I was, not even ‘good evening.’ He would not say anything,” Helene Achat, who now lives in Canada with her two children, said through a Haitian-Creole translator.

Achat’s testimony was presented to contrast what the defense presented during the past two days — that Saint-Simon regularly sent money to three children he had in Haiti to send them to school and help them with basic needs.

Saint-Simon chose not to take the stand. The last defense witness jurors heard from was Gerald Murray, a cultural anthropologist and retired University of Florida professor who has researched the culture, economy and politics in SaintSimon’s native Haiti.

To prepare for the trial, Murray interviewed Saint-Simon and seven of his family members and planned to tell jurors about Saint-Simon’s life and how he fit into the country’s history and cultural norms.

But after a preview of his testimony after jurors left for the day Tuesday, Circuit Judge John Marshall Kest ruled the details Murray gathered about Saint-Simon’s life were not acceptable under the rules of evidence. Murray was allowed to speak about Haiti in general but not to tell jurors about Saint-Simon.

Jurors convicted Saint-Simon of first-degree murder in February. Alexandria, an Olympia High School student, was reported missing July 28, 2014. Her body was found Aug. 1, 2014, on the Osceola-Polk county line.