By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHREE MEN were convicted yesterday of the murder of Sylvia Edwards, 48, the gas station operator who was kidnapped in July 2000 and then shot and killed when demands for a ransom were not met.
A Home Circuit Court jury, after retiring for two hours, found Rupert Wallace, 40,
businessman, of 365 Maji Boulevard, Garveymeade, St. Catherine, Rohan Masters, 20, electrician, of 66 Luke Lane, Kingston and Howard Lindsay, 32, craft vendor, of 45 Wild Street, Allman Town, Kingston, guilty of non-capital murder.
Justice David Pitter put off sentencing until Friday. The men will be sentenced to life imprisonment but the judge can recommend how many years they must serve before they can be eligible for parole.
Attorneys-at-law Glen Cruickshank, Lloyd McFarlane and Ravil Golding, who represent the men, will make pleas for leniency before the men are sentenced.
FIVE MEN WERE CHARGED
Five men were charged with Edwards' murder, but two of them have since died. They were Alrick Simpson, also called 'Tata', who was fatally shot at a construction site on Braemar Avenue, Kingston 10 on December 13 last year and Shem Rowe who was fatally shot on September 30, 2001 - a few weeks after he was granted bail.
Kent Pantry, Q.C., Director of Public Prosecutions, and Georgiana Fraser, Acting Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, represented the Crown at the two-week trial.
Edwards who, along with her husband, operated an Esso gas station at the corner of Hagley Park and Waltham Park roads, Kingston 11, was trailed from her Plantation Heights home, St. Andrew, in July 2000. She was abducted on Red Hills Road, St. Andrew. On August 1 her body was found with gunshot wounds in a shallow grave at University Heights, St. Andrew.
Wallace has two previous convictions. He was convicted in 1990 for illegal possession of a firearm and sentenced to five years imprisonment. He was also sentenced in 1990 to ten years imprisonment for robbery with aggravation.
