Reyes Ignacio Lauerano Vicente leaving the Courthouse after hearing the guilty verdict in his case on Wednesday morning.
DUTCH QUARTER--Reyes Ignacio Lauerano Vicente (29), who was accused of having gunned down and killed Carnicio D.S. Warno at close range on “the block” at Nick Spring Drive in Dutch Quarter at 12:44am October 12, 2019, was sentenced by the Court of First Instance to eighteen years on Wednesday.
Warno was a known criminal, who was sentenced on February 27, 2014, to eight years for the attempted murder of Devon Otto, a fellow inmate at the Pointe Blanche prison at the time. Warno committed the crime together with another inmate while he was sitting out a 10-year sentence for armed robbery.
During the October 21 hearing in this case, the prosecutor had demanded 20 years for murder and possession of an illegal firearm, a 40-calibre Springfield Armory model XD with 12 cartridges.
The Court found the defendant guilty of murdering a man by shooting a bullet in his head from nearby, in the vicinity of a local bar.
Prior to the offence, he had already shared his firearms possession with others by letting them see the weapon while it was hidden in his waistband under his T-shirt, according to camera images in that bar.
The victim briefly visited the bar, and after he left the establishment the suspect followed him. Fifty-two seconds later a shot was fired, which was audible in the bar and for two witnesses who were sitting on a bench close to the crime scene, where they saw the suspect immediately after the shot rang out. One of these witnesses also saw a firearm.
The judge stated in the verdict that one can only guess about the motive for the crime, but in the casefile there were indications that it could have been jealousy.
Vicente, who is a Dutch Quarter resident, denied he was the shooter, claiming that he was not around when the shooting happened. He was arrested on October 18, 2020. A firearm was found in his bed in his bedroom during a search, but ballistic investigations revealed that the victim was not killed by ammunition fired by that weapon.
According to the Netherlands Forensic Institute (NFI), a shell was found on the crime scene which allegedly belonged to a firearm that had been used in a fatal crime committed on Sao Paulo Road in Union Farm on March 21, 2019.
Lawyer for the defence Geert Hatzmann had stated the motive for the murder remained unclear and that his client’s behaviour at the scene of the crime and afterwards did not prove anything about his involvement in the victim’s death.
According to Hatzmann, Warno may very well have been the victim of a criminal “reckoning,” as images of drugs and money found on his phone could have been indications that he had been involved in so-called “rip deals.”
