Police officers escorting Jean Joel Hodge (centre) out of the courthouse on Thursday morning after the Court of First Instance found him guilty of manslaughter.
PHILIPSBURG--A man was sentenced by the Court of First Instance on Thursday to twelve years in prison for a fatal stabbing in Dutch Quarter earlier this year.
Jean Joel Hodge (38) denied having stabbed Esthernel “Mustafa” Richardson (61) to death on February 6. During his trial last week, Hodge claimed that another man had grabbed his folding knife and attacked the victim before leaving him on the pavement near the corner of Union Farm Road and A.Th. Illidge Road.
Hodge told the court that he had just finished work and had been sharing a joint at the roadside that evening with a man named “Delroy” when the victim walked by.
Hodge said the victim and Delroy had gotten into an argument, and claimed that Delroy had suddenly seized the knife clipped to his backpack and used it to stab Richardson four times. Delroy then tossed the weapon back at him before leaving the scene, according to Hodge.
The judge did not believe Hodge’s testimony, citing a witness who saw the attack and later picked out Hodge’s picture from a photo array shown to them by detectives.
Defence lawyer Shaira Bommel attempted to discredit this identification during last week’s trial, pointing out that the perpetrator’s back was to the witness during the fatal stabbing. Because the person could not have seen the killer’s face, their identification of Hodge is unreliable, Bommel argued.
The judge dismissed this argument in Thursday’s verdict, ruling that the witness did get a look at the perpetrator’s face. The witness said the killer had briefly returned to the scene before police arrived and had asked the gathering crowd if anyone had called the ambulance.
The judge also supported his guilty verdict with the testimony of police officers at the scene, who heard bystanders talking among themselves and naming the defendant as the perpetrator.
Police arrested Hodge at his home about three hours later. A search recovered a blood-stained backpack and a bloody knife wrapped in a cloth.
Subsequent forensic tests found both Richardson’s and Hodge’s DNA on the knife. The Dutch Forensic Institute NFI estimated that there was a 20-million-to-one chance that Hodge’s result was a false positive.
A forensic pathologist had also determined that the width and length of the knife found in Hodge’s home matched the stab wounds on the victim’s body.
Last week, a prosecutor demanded 16 years in prison for manslaughter. He argued that Hodge’s story did not match the forensic evidence, telling the court that a third person’s DNA would have been found on the knife if it were true.
However, the judge found a sentence of 12 years in prison more appropriate. He based this on a psychological report that described Hodge as not being fully responsible due to an underlying psychological disorder and substance abuse. The report recommended intensive psychological treatment alongside a prison sentence.
“His troubled history, in combination with cognitive and psychological limitations, seems to keep the defendant trapped in a vicious circle of recidivism,” the judge wrote in the verdict.
Thursday’s conviction marks Hodge’s second for manslaughter. The first came in 2007, when he was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
Hodge was also recently convicted for attempted manslaughter. This was for a stabbing at a Dutch Quarter bar on August 19, 2022. The victim sustained six knife wounds to his head and face, which required 15 stitches and left permanent scars.
During last week’s trial, Richardson’s sister read an emotional letter to the court on behalf of the family. She described her brother as “free-spirited” and “caring” but lamented that they had “lost the battle to get him to clean up”.
“He was loved by all of us,” she said, fighting through tears.
