Delon Gordon, who is on trial for allegedly murdering his wife by setting her on fire in their Better Hope, East Coast of Demerara home, had previously threatened to kill the woman, his mother-in-law testified yesterday.
An emotional Ingrid Delph, the mother of Natasha Johnson, told Justice Navindra Singh and a 12-member jury in the High Court that Gordon had threatened to kill her daughter prior to setting the house on fire but she did not take his declaration seriously. “Her told me one day he was going to kill my daughter,” she stated,
Gordon was charged with the murder of Johnson, who succumbed to burns she suffered in 2011 after their Better Hope home went up in flames.
Senior State Counsel Judith Gildharie-Mursalin, in her opening address, pleaded with jurors to give
their undivided attention to the evidence in the trial because at the end of it they will be called upon to give a verdict in accordance with the said evidence and the oath they took. “Neither sympathy or prejudice should be allowed to influence your approach to the evidence or your assessment of the witnesses as they testify,” she stated.
Gildharie-Mursalin stated that it is the prosecution’s case that Gordon threw a flammable substance on Johnson as she was lying on her bed before lighting her afire and causing her death.
In her testimony, Delph said that on the day of the fire, she received a call from someone who told her to go to the George-town Public Hospital, where she later found her daughter burnt and wrapped in bandages. She stated that she went to see Gordon to ask him why he would “burn” Johnson but all he told her was that a kerosene stove exploded and started the fire.
However, attorney Dawn Holder, who with attorney Raymond Alli is representing Gordon, contended that Delph was lying about her conversation with Gordon.
She stated that Delph was barred from seeing Gordon in the hospital by police ranks.
But Delph denied this, saying, “I did talk to him!”
“Do you understand the oath you took when you came to this court?” Holder responded, before repeating that Delph was restricted from entering the hospital room Gordon was in.
“I’m not lying, Madam!” Delph said, breaking down into tears and accusing Gordon of killing her daughter and “leaving her children to suffer.”
Johnson’s sister and brother also testified yesterday. Her sister was very emotional and was asked several times to repeat her statement because her voice muffled from crying. Later in the afternoon, one of Johnson’s children also testified.
Another witness, David Budwa, told the court that he was one of Johnson’s neighbours and that on the night of the fire he heard a loud explosion and then heard Johnson shouting, “Oh God this is like a bomb.”
He said when he looked over to the house, which was about 15 feet away, it was engulfed in flames. “I shut my door because I was afraid people came to terrorise squatters,” he said, before adding that he did not know it was a fire and that Johnson and her children were in there.
