A 44-year-old man who stabbed his estranged wife to death because she infected him with the HIV virus was yesterday found guilty on the lesser count of manslaughter. After deliberating for 35 minutes, the 12-member jury in the San Fernando Second Assizes Court found Anthony Atwell, also known as Tony, not guilty of murder, but guilty on the lesser charge. The State's case led by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Kathy Ann Waterman-Latchoo was that he killed Gail August in cold blood because she rejected his pleas for reconciliation. However, the jury rejected this and accepted the 44-year-old man's defence that he was provoked into killing her because she infected him with HIV then left him for another man.
Atwell who was before Justice Anthony Carmona admitted that on October 27, 2003, he purchased two knives in Point Fortin. He admitted that he subsequently accosted her in front of her workplace, a clothes store, on Point Fortin main road and begged her to "come back home with me and leh we spend we last days together." He said, however, that August rejected him, saying she wanted no part of him. "After what she did to me I just take out the knife and stab her," he said. Atwell said he was sorry for what he did but she "buss up" his heart. He said when he first met her on Kings Wharf she told him she had "runnings" and not Aids. He did not heed the warning of his employer and relative that she had Aids. However, during the course of their relationship, he saw signs that made him think that she was infected.
Atwell said she did not get tested because she claimed to be allergic to needles. Instead, he said, she played a "nasty game, giving me Aids and leaving me by myself to die." Two weeks before her death August left him and was sharing a common-law relationship with Anslem Joseph. The State had called eight witnesses, including police complainant Cpl Straker, and read the deposition of Joseph who died sometime ago. Atwell's attorney Wilston Campbell is expected to give his mitigation plea on Thursday after which the judge would sentence Atwell.