LABRADOR SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR MURDER OF MCMILLEN
By Angela Burns Piper
“You got what you wanted! Congratulations, you’ve done your
daughter a great disservice! The person who did this to
her is still out there! Wait till they find out about the car! Where is
the justice?” Those were the last words of Mrs.
Barbara Labrador and her daughter Honey as they stormed out of the courtroom
just before 8:30 last night (Thursday
May 10th), following the verdict of guilty against son and brother William
B. Labrador.
Labrador was found guilty by a 9-member jury of murdering 34 year old
Connecticut artist Lois McMillen on or about
the 14th of January 2000. Presiding judge Justice Kenneth Benjamin took
approximately 3 hours and 5 minutes to give
his summation Thursday morning, before the jury retired at 12:45 pm. The
jury then took all of 6 hours and 10 minutes
deliberating before they came back to the courtroom undecided at 7-2.
Jury forewoman Gloria Small asked that the
evidence of the prosecution’s star witness Jeffrey Plante be read
again, specifically as it related to the alleged confession
to him by Labrador.
Justice Benjamin, in insisting that the verdict be unanimous, retired
the jury after ten minutes and it took them another 1
hour and 50 minutes before they came back with a unanimous guilty verdict.
Labrador was immediately sentenced to life in prison, over the screams
by his mother. He was immediately handcuffed by Police and prison officials
and taken back into custody at Balsam Ghut.
Speaking to The Island Sun newspaper shortly after the verdict, Trinidadian
prosecutor Theodore Guerra said, “it was a
very difficult case particularly when there were the four accused, but
after the other three went, it became a very easy
case.”
Defense attorney Richard Hector Q.C was visibly very disappointed. “I’m
devastated by this verdict of the jury, I really
am…I’m really surprised that a jury could find people guilty
on this evidence which has been led in this courtroom.”
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