Convict appeals 88-years jail sentence for Old Year’s Day murder of ex-girlfriend

Dec 31, 2020 News

Sentenced: Jermaine Maynard.

Kaieteur News – Murder convict, Jermaine Maynard, has asked the Appeal Court to overturn the 88-years jail sentence, which was imposed on him by Justice Navindra Singh, for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Carlissa Mathews.
Matthews was shot in the head in the vicinity of the Stabroek’s Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) by Maynard on December 31, 2013.
Maynard, 50, was found guilty of murder by a mixed 12-member jury before Justice Singh in January 2016. Maynard is now asking the Court of Appeal to set aside and/or reverse his conviction and sentence.
Among other things, he is contending that the trial judge made several errors in law when summing up the evidence to the jury. The murder convict further argued that the 88-years jail sentence is manifestly excessive.

Dead: Carlissa Mathews.

His attorney, Nigel Hughes, is expected to present submissions when the case comes up at the Appeal Court on February 1, 2021.
Throughout his trial in the High Court, Maynard had maintained that he is not the person who killed Matthews.
However, the victim’s mother, Carol Kennedy, recalled that Maynard pulled out a gun from his side and shot her daughter outside KFC.
The woman had informed the court of the abusive relationship, which her daughter shared with Maynard. At one point of her testimony, Kennedy recalled the shooter standing over her daughter even after she was injured, and pressed on the trigger of the silver pistol; the gun clicked three times.
She remembered that at that stage she started to advance toward the shooter but her fiancé Collis Bruce, who was also standing outside the KFC outlet on Water and Croal Streets, Georgetown kept her back, telling her that Maynard was still armed and could shoot her as well.
Meanwhile, reports had indicated that minutes before the shooting, Maynard approached his 20-year-old ex lover, and was seen briefly talking to her.
He had requested a private audience with Matthews but she refused. Moments later Maynard pulled out a gun and shot her to the head.
Matthews was rushed to the Georgetown Public Hospital Corporation (GPHC) where she succumbed early New Year’s Day 2014. Maynard fled the scene after the shooting but was nabbed at the ‘back track’ crossing at Springlands, Corentyne on January 2, as he was about to board a boat to Nickerie, Suriname.
Reports also indicated that this was not the first time Maynard was found guilty of such crime. He was previously found guilty of killing another woman, with whom he had shared a relationship and supposedly loved.