Latest update April 7th, 2025 6:08 AM
Accused in Agricola housewife murder denies knowledge of crime
Abiola Jacobs
Speaking publicly for the first time since she was indicted for the murder of Agricola, housewife Donna Taylor, the accused Abiola Jacobs, denied the charge and pleaded her innocence before the court.
Jacobs elected to give an unsworn statement in her defence, Thursday, after the State called its final witness.
In her short address to the judge and members of the jury, Jacobs denied having anything to do with the death of Mrs. Taylor.
She instead told the Court that she and Taylor shared a good relationship, even after the relationship she (Jacobs) had with the woman’s son, ended.
Jacobs claimed that she was at home when she learnt of the incident which occurred at the Taylors’ residence.
“I received a call about one in the morning,” she said, adding that she was accompanied by her mother to the residence where she met with a group of villagers and police officers.
The accused claimed that was the only time she went to the house on the date that Donna Taylor met her demise.
Jacobs said too that she was taken into custody without being informed that she was a suspect in the murder.
The accused told the Court it was only after arriving at the station that the police told her that she would be subjected to a body search.
She said, too, that she was confronted by a woman (Samantha Sabat) who claimed she had seen her at the house at the time of the murder.
The United Kingdom-based Sabat also testified on Thursday.
Giving evidence via Skype, Sabat recounted hearing the voice of a male before seeing Abiola Jacobs in the house on the night of the murder.
She recalled leaping from a verandah in a bid to save herself from the intruders who had gained access to the Taylor’s residence.
The witness told the court that she was a guest of the Taylors and that she shared an intimate relationship with the couple’s son, Bertram Taylor.
Donna Taylor, 55, the housewife, was killed in her home in 2014.
Abiola Jacobs, a former Guyana Defence Force rank, is on trial before Justice James Bovell Drakes and a mixed jury.
The bound body of Donna Taylor was found at the back of her Lot 16-17 Public Road Agricola, East Bank Demerara residence.
The victim’s throat was slit and a piece of cloth wrapped around her neck.
The mother of four was said to have been attacked in her bed and slain after she was dragged to her backyard.
The other occupant of the rented upper flat, Samantha Sabat, was subsequently found lying unconscious in the front yard.
Sabat, who had arrived three weeks prior from the United Kingdom, reportedly sustained a fractured arm and lacerations to her face and parts of her body. She had come to attend her father’s funeral.
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