Six years after four-year-old Amy Emily Annamunthodo was tortured and beaten to death, her stepfather Marlon King was sentenced yesterday to hang for murdering her. After two hours of deliberation the jury accepted the State's evidence that King, 39, burned the child with cigarettes, hung her from her hair and beat her until her heart ruptured. In a last-ditch attempted to prove his innocence King interjected before the forewoman gave the verdict but was silenced by Justice Anthony Carmona.
After the verdict King was asked if he had anything to say as to why he should not be sentenced. Referring to the evidence of Dr Chris Pulchan, who said the child arrived dead at the hospital and rigor mortis had already set in, King said: is what set that child in rigor mortis in less than two hours." Neither Amy's mother, Anita, or her father, Jason Walker, were in court for the entire trial which began last September in the San Fernando First Assizes. The judge took six days to sum up the case. King was charged with killing the child, who was 33 pounds, unable to speak properly and under-developed, on May 15, 2006 at his Ste Madeleine Road, Marabella, home. King had shared a common-law relationship with the child's mother for two-and-a-half years.
After King was escorted out of the courtroom, the judge explained the trial was delayed because of concerns that a Marlon King was once admitted to Ward One of the San Fernando General Hospital. However, he said, it turned out it was another person who had since died but if it was the accused then the matter would have had to be aborted. The judge agreed with verdict, saying it was consistence with the evidence. In thanking the jury for patience and service, he said he would request the registrar take their names off the jury list for the next five years. King's neighbour, Anthony Rocke, said he saw King punching Amy 20 to 30 times while she hung from a cloth tied to her hair and attached to a door ledge. She was clad in underwear and her mouth was gagged.
Medical evidence was led that Amy was burnt with cigarettes on her vagina, inner thigh and forearm an hour before she died. She suffered multiple internal and external injuries throughout her body, including a broken rib and bruised organs.
King denied he beat the child, saying it was her mother who will beat her. He also claimed Rocke was responsible for inflicting the injuries on her. State attorney Maureciea Joseph prosecuted the matter while attorney El Farouk Hosein, instructed by attorney Dereck Dindial, defended King.
