Describing Cheriss Ricardo Ince as “pure evil”, this island’s top prosecutor submitted that the murderer be locked away for the rest of his life for society’s safety.
“He is a cool and calculated and evil murderer, and it is my submission that he is one candidate fit to spend his natural life in prison,” said Acting Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Alliston Seale on Monday after attorneys involved in the murder case received a psychiatric report on the killer’s mental state.
Last November, Ince, of Nursery #2, Four Roads, St Philip, pleaded guilty to non-capital murder, admitting to killing Marcelle Smith sometime between October 12 and October 25, 2015.
The woman’s decomposing body was discovered in a ravine two weeks after she went missing from her #2 Congo Road, St Philip residence on October 12, 2015.
At the last hearing in March before Justice Randall Worrell, the acting DPP requested a psychiatric evaluation on Ince on the premise that given the manner in which this crime was committed, “the perpetrator had to be crazy or simply evil”.
Ince’s attorney Safiya Moore agreed to the request.
Seale, addressing the No. 2 Supreme Court on Monday, disclosed that the psychiatrist stated in the report that “not one thing is wrong” with the now-convicted man.
“ . . . . It bolsters my submission that he is just plain evil, having perpetrated the type of crime that he has against this unsuspecting, now-deceased woman. What kind of person would go on an aged woman and treat her in the way that he treated her . . . constantly beating and finally choking and tying rope around her neck? I can conclude that Mr Cheriss Ince is just an evil person,” the acting DPP stated.
Highlighted among Ince’s aggravating factors was the fact that he was on bail on another murder charge when he killed Smith.
Seale explained that the first matter had taken some time in the system as it dealt with the issue of DNA. At the time, he said, “Barbados didn’t really have the capacity to deal with [that]. As a result, we had to seek outside help for DNA result”.
Given that factor as well as others, such as delay in that case, Ince had sought and secured bail. However, the prosecutor stated, Ince did not grasp the opportunity to keep himself out of trouble.
“…. And he finds himself charged with another matter. This simply tells me that this man does not care because, being on bail, one would be walking on proverbial eggshells . . . . But he takes . . . the liberty that the court restores to him, in circumstances where he still has a murder charge over his head, and commits murder. No one can be more callous than that . . . . That is a very serious aggravating circumstance . . . . That is why my submission is that he should be put away for the longest possible time so that nobody else will die,” the acting DPP said.
“He sneaks up on the lady and takes her into the house, physically and verbally abuses that woman up until her death. God knows the terror she went through in those days – days before her death. So, this isn’t even a one-off . . . this is suffering, this is torture, and this is humiliation of a person . . . an old defenceless woman . . . 75 years old and that’s how he treats her . . . . This is torture at its highest.”
As Ince sat in the prisoner’s dock with no apparent reaction, Seale told the court: “I would suggest that he be a candidate for natural life. The only way old people in Barbados will be safe, the only way women will be safe – because that seems to be his target – . . . [the only way] vulnerable persons will be safe is if this Cheriss Ince is incarcerated for his natural life.”
Referencing a pre-sentencing report which stated that Ince disclosed he only used cannabis on special occasions, Seale said the convicted man “isn’t a drug addict, he isn’t mad and if he is none of these things . . . he is just pure evil”.
“Nain ain’t wrong with the man’s head, either psychiatric or drug-induced psychiatric, and he can commit a crime like this and then he can go and park the woman’s car . . . catch the bus, and life goes on.”
Ince’s lawyer will reply to the acting DPP’s submissions next Tuesday, May 23.
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