Fran­cis Joseph

A man, who was charged with hack­ing to death four mem­bers of a fam­i­ly, walked free yes­ter­day. Af­ter a two-month-old tri­al, the 12-mem­ber ju­ry took just 45 min­utes to re­turn not guilty ver­dicts.

It was no All Fools' Day joke, but State pros­e­cu­tor Jen­nifer Mar­tin looked stunned at the ver­dicts. Lead de­fence at­tor­ney Os­bourne Charles SC was more re­lieved, say­ing this was a le­gal aid brief. Af­ter he was ac­quit­ted Har­ri­lal Matthew said: "I won­der how the State is go­ing to pay me for the nine years I have been in jail." As he walked down the steps of the Hall of Jus­tice, Port-of-Spain, Matthew seemed con­fused as to where he should go. Armed with a suit­bag and two oth­er bags, Matthew head­ed east along Knox Street, say­ing he had fam­i­ly to re­turn to, al­though he was alone in court. Jus­tice De­van Ram­per­sad, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain Fourth Crim­i­nal Court, start­ed his sum­ma­tion on Wednes­day and end­ed at 10.14 am yes­ter­day. Soon the ju­ry was ready. The stone-faced ju­rors re­turned to the court­room and the fore­man an­nounced the not guilty ver­dicts.

Matthew, who was stand­ing in the dock, stood still as the ver­dicts were de­liv­ered. It was on­ly when he was told by the judge he was dis­charged Matthew moved. Lyn­don Gar­cia, who lost his two chil­dren, wife and moth­er, in the in­ci­dent, of­fered no com­ment but his broth­er, Den­nis Gar­cia, was more vo­cal, chastis­ing the ju­di­cial sys­tem for what had hap­pened. Matthew, 44, was charged with the mur­ders of Kather­ine Gar­cia, 62, Ali­cia James, 28, Dil­lon Gar­cia, nine, and Giselle Gar­cia, four, on May 5, 2001, at Mun­do Nue­vo, Tal­paro. State at­tor­ney Jen­nifer Mar­tin pros­e­cut­ed, while Os­bourne Charles SC, Owen Hinds Jr and Jerome Her­rera ap­peared for Matthew. Lyn­don Gar­cia said on the day in ques­tion, he left home around 5.30 am to take his fa­ther to the mar­ket. Short­ly be­fore 10 am, while on the Ari­ma taxi stand, he got a mes­sage and rushed home. "When I got there, I saw my wife, Ali­cia James, ly­ing in front of the house. She was cov­ered with a white sheet. "When I re­moved the sheet, there were chop wounds to her back. There was blood lead­ing to the garage. She ap­peared to be dead." he said.

Gar­cia said he then saw his moth­er, Kather­ine, ly­ing on the ground in the garage. He said she had chop wounds to her neck and she to, was dead. Gar­cia saw his son, a para­plegic, sit­ting in a wheel­chair with his face down. "I saw a stab wound to the left side of his neck. I then saw my daugh­ter, Giselle, ly­ing on her back in the garage, and she ap­peared to be dead," he added. Gar­cia said two po­lice­men were present and af­ter speak­ing to them, he hand­ed over a firearm. Two days lat­er, he went to the Foren­sic Sci­ences Cen­tre where he iden­ti­fied the four bod­ies. On May 11, 2001, he at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al ser­vice for the vic­tims at the San Rafael RC Church. Gar­cia's broth­er, Den­nis, said he went to cut grass some dis­tance away from his par­ents' home.

About two hours lat­er, when he emerged from the bush­es, he saw a crowd near the house. He went and in­quired and saw the bod­ies. All four per­sons ap­peared to be dead. Den­nis said he knew some­one called Har­ri­lal Matthew. When told to look around the court and see if he could iden­ti­fy Matthew, Den­nis took a long time be­fore say­ing: "I don't see any­one like him here to­day." Un­der cross-ex­am­i­na­tion, Den­nis re­mem­bered giv­ing ev­i­dence at the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry at the Ari­ma Mag­is­trates' Court but he could not re­mem­ber sign­ing his de­po­si­tion. When he was shown his sig­na­ture on the de­po­si­tion, Den­nis replied: "It does not seem to be my sig­na­ture. To me, it don't look like my sig­na­ture. That was ten years ago... you write dif­fer­ent­ly."

Den­nis in­sist­ed he nev­er signed any­thing at the Mag­is­trates' Court.

But an­oth­er wit­ness, Bar­ry De Four, iden­ti­fied Matthew who was sit­ting in the dock. He said he had known him for 15 years at the time of the killings. An­oth­er wit­ness saw Matthew hid­ing be­hind a house with a cut­lass at the time of the killings. Matthew gave no ev­i­dence at his tri­al.