The 9-person jury trying Rodman Moses Lewis for the November 3, 2015, killing of Trivia Riviere has returned with a guilty verdict: murder. The jury ruled that Lewis was guilty of the murder of 26-year-old Riviere who happened to be his former girlfriend and the mother of his child. Based on the ruling, the state prosecution is pushing to have a death sentence pronounced on Lewis.
The trial lasted for almost seven weeks and the prosecution fielded more than 20 witnesses to nail the fact that Lewis killed Riviere after a heated argument. State Attorney Sharma Dalrymple led the prosecution and told the court that Lewis planned to kill his former girlfriend and actually carried out the threats.
One of the key witnesses of the state is Arlana Jno Baptiste Mitchel who lived with Riviere and saw the murder happen. She said she tried to push Lewis away after he hit Riviere and she fell the floor, but he went ahead to hit her head severally with a gas cylinder, smashing her head and thereafter boasting to people who gathered at the crime scene that he was glad he finished her off.
Police Sergeant Chaucer James also presented proofs that Lewis killed Riviere since he was the first police officer to arrive at the scene to investigate the crime. Retired police inspector Roy Pascal was also called as a prosecution witness since he came to the crime scene and saw the deceased in a pool on her own blood with her head smashed in and Lewis confessing in rage that he killed her with a cylinder after a heated argument.
Defense attorney Anthony Commodore countered the submissions of the witnesses, saying his client did not plan to kill Riviere and that the murder weapon was not even tendered in court as exhibit.
The presiding judge, Justice Wynante Adrien-Roberts, later withdrew into the court chambers with the 9-member jury for deliberation after the prosecution and defense had finally exhausted their arguments. After almost two hours, the jury returned with their verdict of guilty. But the court will finally sentence Lewis on February 1, 2021.
“The prosecution proved its case and justice has been served,” Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Evelina Baptiste said. “The DPP’s office put a lot of work into this matter, there have been sleepless nights; and we are ministers of justice and we maintained being a minister of justice throughout this matter; and at the end of the day it is not about winning or losing, it is about the fairness of the trial – and we must say that the verdict is sound and the trail was a fair trial.”
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