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Wednesday, July 30, 2025

2 found guilty of felony murder

by

Derek Achong
1575 days ago
20210407

Two men of Mara­cas/St Joseph have been con­vict­ed of mur­der­ing a man while rob­bing a card game in 2010.

Mick­el Sum­rah and Mas­sam­ba Sha­ka St Prix were found guilty of felony mur­der at the end of their judge-alone tri­al be­fore High Court Judge Gail Gon­za­les yes­ter­day.

Sum­rah and St Prix were ac­cused of mur­der­ing Quin­cy De Four on April 24, 2010.

Ac­cord­ing to ev­i­dence, pre­sent­ed by pros­e­cu­tors dur­ing their tri­al, around 1.15 am, De Four was gam­bling with five friends near his home at Guarat­ta Hill, Mara­cas/St Joseph when Sum­rah and St Prix came to rob them.

Sum­rah, who was armed with a cut­lass, beat the men with it and rob them while St Prix stood guard with a gun.

Dur­ing the ac­tion, St Prix shot De Four twice in the groin.

He ran a short dis­tance be­fore col­laps­ing in a drain.

Af­ter Sum­rah and St Prix left, De Four was tak­en to the Er­ic Williams Med­ical Sci­ences Com­plex in Mt Hope where he was pro­nounced dead on ar­rival.

An au­top­sy said he died as a re­sult of blood loss af­ter a bul­let per­fo­rat­ed his thigh and his scro­tum.

Sum­rah was ar­rest­ed two months af­ter the shoot­ing while St Prix was de­tained two years lat­er.

Dur­ing the tri­al be­fore Gon­za­les, pros­e­cu­tors re­lied on state­ments Sum­rah al­leged­ly gave po­lice af­ter his ar­rest and on the ev­i­dence of De Four’s friends, who sur­vived the at­tack.

How­ev­er, the al­leged eye­wit­ness­es did not tes­ti­fy and were not cross-ex­am­ined as pros­e­cu­tors made a suc­cess­ful ap­pli­ca­tion to use their state­ments and de­po­si­tions from the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry be­cause they ex­pressed fear over ap­pear­ing in the tri­al.

In de­fence of the case, Sum­rah claimed that he was framed by po­lice while St Prix pro­vid­ed an al­i­bi.

Al­though the ev­i­dence showed that St Prix fired that fa­tal shots, both men were pros­e­cut­ed for mur­der un­der joint en­ter­prise.

Gon­za­les even­tu­al­ly found them guilty of the less­er of­fence of felony mur­der.

Un­der the felony mur­der rule, the manda­to­ry death penal­ty for mur­der is waived in cir­cum­stances where death oc­curs dur­ing the com­mis­sion of a less­er crim­i­nal of­fence, which in most cas­es is rob­bery.

The duo is ex­pect­ed to be sen­tenced lat­er this month.

Sum­rah was rep­re­sent­ed by Odai Ramis­c­hand and Arif Ra­haman while St Prix was rep­re­sent­ed by Robert Vin­cent Charles and Danielle Ram­per­sad.

Sta­cy Laloo-Chong and Kezia Gray-Bir­kette pros­e­cut­ed.


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