Man strangled his sister over $1,000
POSTED: 02/10/11 5:17 PMKiller brother sentenced to 11 years and 6 months
St. Maarten – Rivière George, 38, appeared with a white bandage around his head in the courtroom yesterday morning – the result of an attack by prison inmates, his attorney mr. S.R. Bommel explained – to hear Judge Mr. M. Keppels sentence him to 11 years and six months imprisonment for the manslaughter on his sister Angela George Le Blanc on April 22nd of last year. The sentence includes a 6-month reduction for time George spent too long in a police cell.
On January 19th, the fourth time George appeared in court, prosecutor Mr. R. Mud charged that the crime was inspired by the defendant’s financial problems that, in turn, were possibly caused by a gambling addiction. On the day of the murder, witnesses saw the defendant argue with his sister, who later went to the bank to withdraw $1,000. The money was never found.
The court convicted George based on statements made by anonymous witnesses. These statements match and they also are consistent with the injuries the victim sustained.
The Dutch Forensics Institute NFI reported that blood found on a pair of George’s jeans, comes from the victim. The court dismissed the defendant’s claim that this blood could also be his, given his family relationship with the victim, because DNA-examination of the blood did not return any cell-material of him. The NFI reported that the chance that the blood belongs to someone other than the victim is one in a billion.
The anonymous witnesses had seen George argue with his sister in her house at the Pin Cushion Drive; they told investigators that he had held her in a choke hold and that he had thrown her on the floor. After that incident nobody saw 42-year-old Angela George Le Blanc alive again.
Investigators treated George initially as a witness, because he reported finding his sister’s lifeless body on April 23 of last year on the floor in her bedroom. But the fact that George, who brought an uncle after his “discovery” to the house, had forced the front door to gain entry proved that the door was locked. Therefore, the killer must have had a key, and George had one.
The autopsy report revealed that the victim died of suffocation and of punches to her throat.
“The defendant is guilty of seriously ill-treating and strangling his sister, as a result of which she has died. The defendant is guilty of one of the most serious facts in the penal code: manslaughter,” Judge Keppels wrote in her verdict.
The Judge followed prosecutor Mud’s demand for a 12-year prison sentence, but she granted a 6-month reduction for the six weeks he spent too long in a police cell.
