Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter THE SENTENCING of 39-year-old Paul Gooden who was convicted on Wednesday in one of the most sensational murder cases in the island's history, will take place today.
Gooden, a former distribution consultant at Yummy Bakery, St. Andrew, will be sentenced to life imprisonment as the law stipulates.
However, Justice Marva McIntosh will have to determine how many years he must spend in prison before he is eligible for parole.
STRANGLED AND DUMPED
Despite the character evidence given for Gooden at his trial, he will get a lengthy prison term because of the heinous nature of the crime. The jury found that Gooden not only strangled his wife Ingrid Andrade-Gooden but dumped her body in mangroves off the Norman Manley Highway, Kingston.
He could be facing a prison sentence of at least 25 years before he is eligible for parole.
Kent Pantry, Q.C., director of public prosecutions, in presenting the evidence at the trial in the Home Circuit Court, outlined as part of the Crown's case based on scientific evidence, that Mrs. Gooden was wearing her night-gown at the time when she was strangled.
Mr. Pantry said that Gooden dressed the body, placed it in his car before disposing of it in the mangroves. The face, with human bite marks, was mangled beyond recognition.
The judge will take all those factors into consideration when passing sentence. A plea for leniency will be made by Gooden's lawyers. Lord Anthony Gifford, Q.C., who is going to make the mitigation plea, will implore the judge to be lenient in the number of years she recommends that Gooden should spend in prison.
