Throwing himself at the mercy of the court and accepting responsibility for killing Plaisance resident Jennifer Ann Mendonca, 23-year-old John Hetsberger was yesterday sentenced to 10 years in prison by Justice Navindra Singh at the High Court in Georgetown.
Hetsberger denied the murder charge on which he was initially indicted but pleaded guilty to the lesser count of manslaughter, accepting that he unlawfully killed the 57-year-old woman at her Plaisance home on August 8th, 2014.
The prosecution’s case, which the young man did not dispute, was that he had gone to the woman’s home and strangled her.
Stating that he was sorry for what he had done, Hetsberger begged the judge to be given a “second chance,” while explaining that he had lost his cool.
It had been the claim of the offender, who was 18 years old at the time he committed the offence, that Mendonca, who was well-known as a “spiritualist,” had done “something” to his father that subsequently caused his death.
The young man noted that after losing his father, he lost his cool and went to Mendonca’s Prince William Street, Plaisance, East Coast Demerara home, where he duct-taped her mouth, bound and strangled her.
Pathologist Dr. Nehaul Singh had given the woman’s cause of death as asphyxiation due to compression injury to the neck.
In a teary address to the court, Hetsberger said that he had made a mistake for which he was sorry and wanted to be given a second chance.
Meanwhile, in mitigation on his client’s behalf, defence attorney Dexter Todd said that his client had been a model prisoner during the time he has been incarcerated, while noting that not only has he exhibited exemplary behaviour but he has participated in every reform programme offered by the prison, for which he has always graduated at the top of his class.
Counsel took the opportunity to also inform the court that his client, who learnt the skill of carpentry behind bars, had made furniture for both the Camp Street and Timehri prisons.
He said too that the young man was a member of the church choir at prison, while noting that he is currently preparing to write the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations in May/June of this year.
Asked what he intends to do for employment once released from prison, Hetsberger said he plans to put his carpentry skills to work as a means of earning an income to support himself.
After listening to the case, Justice Singh informed the young offender that he would be sentenced to 10 years behind bars, with deductions for time spent on remand awaiting trial.
In news reports following the killing, the son of the deceased, Gregory De Souza, had said that around 9 pm on the day in question, he had returned home from work to discover his mother sprawled on his bed with her hands bound and her mouth duct-taped.
Mendonca stayed at home while her son would go to work during the day. De Souza, had related leaving home around 8 am on that day and returning to find the back door of their house ajar.
A source close to the investigation had stated that it appeared the woman was preparing to cook dinner when she was attacked, since there was uncooked chicken and diced vegetables in the kitchen.
When she was younger, Mendonca had presented flowers to Queen Elizabeth during her visit to Guyana in 1966.
