She confessed to killing her ex-lover BDF Corporal Donovan Castillo, but today in Dangriga a Supreme Court judge set Marsha Reid free, and she is at home tonight, after over 1 and a half years on remand while awaiting trial. Justice Denis Hanomansingh found that it was a case of justifiable homicide because she had been provoked by a beating and that she killed him in self-defence.
Justice Hanomansingh found that the prosecution's 3 witnesses, caution statement, and Reid's dock statement all lined up to show that she had no other alternative but to kill Castillo.
That's a major development because prosecution was relying on the section of the statement to be interpreted as Reid attacking first, causing the situation to escalate where Reid provoked the physical confrontation.
Justice Hanomansingh pointed to a section of the statement in which she said that Castillo choked her and was beating her. She and the prosecution's witnesses gave evidence that she sustained injuries such as bleeding from nose, bleeding from the ears, and choke marks on her neck.
Simeon Sampson, her defence attorney, told us this evening that he did not object to the caution statement being admitted into evidence because he believed that it showed that Reid was justified in the use of force.
After carefully reviewing all the evidence, Justice Hanomansingh found that Reid was not guilty of murder, and she was allowed to leave court a free woman this morning. As we reported, she inflicted a stab wound to his neck which was fatal with a kitchen knife while they were fighting in May of last year.
Reid is free tonight for the first time since she was remanded in May of 2012 - and statistically she is lucky to have gotten off since recently there has been at least 3 women convicted for killing their husbands and sentenced to life in prison for it.
