Man, 60, starts trial for murdering GPHC dispatcher girlfriend

Oct 09, 2020 News

Kaieteur News – The trial of sixty year- old, Alan Sim commenced yesterday, five years after his alleged dispatcher girlfriend and mother of his child. Sim, nicknamed Cayenne of Paradise Housing Scheme East Coast Demerara joined the High Court proceedings via zoom from the Lusignan Prison for the 2015 murder of 32 year-old, Melissa Skeete.
Skeete, a dispatcher attached to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) was allegedly stabbed several times about her body on Carmichael Street in the vicinity of The Bishops’ High School and the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre November 23, 2015. The incident is said to have occurred in the daytime while children were still at school.

Murder Accused: Alan Sim called ‘Cayenne’.

Based on reports, on the day in question, Sim showed up at the woman’s workplace in his motorcar and picked her up. Sometime later, Skeete was found lying on the roadway in the vicinity of Carmichael Street, Georgetown bleeding profusely from several stab wounds. She died while receiving treatment at the GPHC.
Sim pleaded not guilty yesterday to the charge before a mixed twelve-member jury and presiding Justice Navindra Singh at the Georgetown High Court. His trial commenced with Senior State Counsel, Tuanna Hardy presenting the facts of the case and calling at least three witnesses to the stand including two policemen and a cousin of the deceased.
The first witness, Skeete’s cousin told the Court that she knew both the accused and the victim and that they shared a relationship which resulted in a child. According to the witness, the relationship between her cousin, Melissa and the accused had soured and the couple would end up in constant arguments.
Given her testimony about the relationship the two shared, attorney representing Sim, Adrian Thompson questioned the witness as to whether she had observed any cut marks about Skeete’s body –the woman told the Court that she could not recall seeing any marks on her cousin.

Murdered: Melissa Skeete

Another witness, police officer Tyrone Williams, testified to accompanying relatives of the victim to the mortuary where he witnessed the post mortem examination. He told the Court that he co-signed to the information produced at the conclusion of the autopsy. Michael La Cruz, an amputee security officer attached to the Ptolemy Reid Rehabilitation Centre, located on Carmichael Street, Georgetown gave the Court his account of the incident, which occurred in proximity to his place of work.
La Cruz said that he was seated in a security hut not too far from the entrance of the centre when he heard children screaming. The man said that he looked out his security hut and saw a group of children clad in their uniforms running towards the centre; they were students of the other schools located nearby, The Bishops’ and St. George’s High Schools.
He explained that the school had just dismissed and many children, including those with disabilities attached the Ptolemy Reid Centre, were waiting to be picked up.
The witness told the court, “After I heard the screaming, I looked to see what it was… I saw a lady running from the direction of Church Street. She fell face down in front the lamp post by the gutter near the front of the building.”
La Cruz noted however that he did not venture outside the compound to see what happened to the woman because he was too occupied trying to calm the children with disabilities who were standing outside the centre.
“I couldn’t help her. I had the children to look out for,” he said.
Further, the security guard told the court that he could not make out what clothes the woman was wearing because it appeared to be covered in blood.
“There was blood from her neck running down,” recalled La Cruz.
Meanwhile police detective, Hamlet Da Silva testified to witnessing the identification parade, which Sim took along with other suspects with similar stature and features. The police witness claimed that during the parade, someone identified Sim as the person responsible for the crime. The trial is continuing.

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