Taxi driver pleads guilty to killing Lusignan hairdressers
Guilty: Melroy Doris
Lennox called Wayne ‘Two Colors.’
Kaieteur News – Melroy Doris, the taxi driver accused alongside Lennox Wayne of ‘Two Colors’ for murdering Lusignan, Demerara East Coast cosmetologist Ashmini Harriram has pleaded guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter .
Doris pleaded guilty to the lesser count before Justice Brassington Reynolds at the High Court in Georgetown.
According to the charge filed by State Prosecutor Tyra Bakker, on July 10, 2014, she illegally killed Harriram, named “Monisha Harriram”.
According to the facts of the matter, on the day in question, Harriram was shot in the throat moments after she boarded a minibus along the Lusignan Railway Embankment, Demerara East Coast.
The shooter emerged conspicuously from a burgundy motor car, PRR 8370 parked along that road. Doris was later identified as the car’s taxi driver at the scene.
During yesterday’s process, the admitted murderer was represented by Stanley Moore, SC, but was not sentenced. He is remanded in prison until his sentencing, which is scheduled for March 25, 2021.
Murdered: Ashmini Harriram
Doris’s plea comes a week after his co-accused Wayne filed a civil suit in court to challenge the State’s right to imprison him for several years for the crime. In the lawsuit, Wayne claims his rights to a fair hearing have been violated.
Wayne claimed he and Doris had been jailed for the crime since October 2014.
He said they had been awaiting court action since November 2015, after he committed to stand trial in the High Court by a Magistrate. Since then, Wayne explained that he had his trial, which ended in a hung jury in 2017, but ever since, he has not had a chance to go to Court.
The applicant also stated that his name was listed for retria in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, but his case never came up.
According to him, every attempt he made to speed up his trial had been in vain.
He noted in particular that his concerns about the delay had been raised at Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) level, but had not been addressed.
Wayne listed several other avenues in which he tried to address their concerns about the delay in trial, but in vain.
In response to the lawsuit, the DPP issued a statement explaining that the accused has the option of pleading guilty to the lesser offense.
The statement stated that “on many occasions, Wayne has indicated that he wished to plead guilty to the lesser offense of manslaughter; the last sign was made in November 2020.
[However] on each of these occasions, after the State began to prepare for the taking of his guilty plea, he changed his decision, which he is entitled to make. “
The DPP noted that while the accused appears to have taken a different route to address the issue, the State is prepared to accept its guilty plea to the lesser manslaughter offense.
Back in 2017, Doris and his co-accused Wayne faced a criminal case in the High Court. They were remanded to prison after the jury failed to reach a verdict on the murder charge.
Following the verdict, Trial Judge Jo Ann Barlow informed the accused that the suspended jury meant they will “have to remain in custody and have another case during another session of Demerara Criminal Assizes.”
Ever since then the duo has been behind bars.