The couple convicted of the murder of university lecturer Dr Peter Vogel will be sentenced on September 22.

The sentencing of Yanika Scott, a domestic helper, and her ex-boyfriend Kelvin Downer was postponed in the Supreme Court last Friday because one of their antecedent reports was outstanding.

Justice Evon Brown, in postponing the sentencing hearing, also ordered a forensic psychiatric report, which he said will help him decide the convicts’ sentences.

Vogel, a Swiss national who lectured at the University of the West Indies, Mona campus, was found dead at his Corporate Area home on July 19, 2007 by his six-year-old son.

According to the police report, Vogel’s hands were tied behind his back, his feet were bound, and his mouth tied with a piece of cloth.

Police investigations led to the arrest of Downer over a year later in November 2008, while Scott, who changed her name to Kamesha Lecky, was arrested in 2012.

During the trial, the pathologist told the court that Vogel was strangled.

The prosecution led evidence that Scott was introduced to the Vogels through Downer, who was the barber of the Vogels’ son. The trial heard that it was Downer who had recommended Scott for a job with the Vogels, after overhearing Mrs Vogel’s telephone conversation that she was in need of a live-in helper.

Downer and Scott met at the College Common residence of the Vogels the same evening for Scott to be interviewed for the job, and immediately following the interview Scott was hired and commenced working the next day.

The prosecution further led evidence that the relationship between Scott and Mrs Vogel changed after Scott called the woman late one night, complaining that the children did not listen whenever their father was around, and furiously questioned why the family had made plans for the children to spend the summer holidays in the Cayman Islands without her knowledge.

The court further heard that on the day before Vogel’s body was found at his house, Scott and her six-year-old daughter were seen at the premises along with Downer and another man, who came there in the night.

But both Downer and Scott have maintained in their unsworn statements that they were forced from the home by three masked gunmen and that they did not return to the scene or report the incident to the police due to fear for their and their young child’s lives.

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