Senior Reporter
derek.achong@guardian.co.tt
A man from Point Fortin with schizophrenia has been freed of murdering his stepfather after spending almost 19 years on remand.
Trevor Huggins was set free after he was acquitted by a 12-member jury before Justice Maria Busby-Earle-Caddle at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain on Monday.
The jury returned with two not guilty verdicts for Huggins, as Justice Busby-Earle-Caddle left it open to them to find him guilty or innocent of murder and the lesser offence of manslaughter.
Huggins, who was represented by Michelle Ali and Shuzvon Ramdass of the Public Defenders’ Department (PDD), was accused of killing Brian O’Shaunghnessy at the family’s home in Point Fortin in January 2007.
During his trial, which began in early October, Huggins’ sister testified that on the day of the incident, she was watching television in a bedroom shared by O’Shaunghnessy and their mother.
She claimed that she heard O’Shaunghnessy scream and found him in the kitchen bleeding from a stab wound to his neck.
When police officers arrived on the scene, she told them that her brother had killed their stepfather, as she saw him running out of the house before she found an unconscious O’Shaunghnessy.
“He not right in he head,” she reportedly said.
Police officers claimed that Huggins confessed when he was arrested, as he reportedly said, “God tell me do it.”
During the trial, State prosecutors Veonna Neale-Munroe and Shanelle Kissoon presented the evidence of a psychiatrist, who testified that Huggins had been diagnosed with schizophrenia and was receiving treatment but had suffered a relapse at the time.
In summing up the case and the legal issues to the jury, Justice Busby-Earle-Caddle advised the jurors that they could find Huggins not guilty of murder and guilty of manslaughter based on his mental health condition if they believed that he stabbed his stepfather.
