By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterA 12-MEMBER jury was empanelled yesterday to try the case of 38-year-old Paul Gooden, former consultant of Yummy Bakery, St. Andrew, who is charged with the murder of his wife, Ingrid Andrade-Gooden, 36, whose body was found in mangroves along the Norman Manley Boulevard, St. Andrew, on November 9, 2003.
After the jury was selected, the case was put off until today to allow the defence lawyers time to study some documents that the lawyers say the prosecution served on them at short notice.
Shortly after the jury was empanelled, Justice Marva McIntosh, the presiding judge at the trial in the Home Circuit Court, submitted several questions to the jurors.
She asked them to raise their hands if any of them knew the accused or the family of the deceased or "foresaw difficulty" in adhering to the terms of the oath or affirmation to give a true verdict according to the evidence.
The judge, after seeing that no hands were raised in response to her questions, warned the jurors not to discuss the case with anyone.
The Crown is alleging that the deceased was strangled in her apartment at 7 Sullivan Avenue, St. Andrew, on the night of November 6 last year where she and the accused lived. The body was removed from the apartment and dumped in mangroves near to the Jamaica Maritime Institute on Norman Manley Boulevard.
Gooden, who is being represented at his trial by attorneys-at-law Lord Anthony Gifford, Q.C., Hugh Thompson and Thalia Maragh, has been in custody since his arrest in November last year.
It is alleged that Gooden told the police that his wife had left home on the morning of Friday, November 7, last year. The body was found by passers-by on November 9. Investigations by the police led to Gooden's arrest.
The post-mortem report revealed that death was due to asphyxia secondary to manual strangulation.
Andrade-Gooden was an administrator at the National Housing Development Corporation and daughter of Glen Andrade, Q.C., retired director of public prosecutions (DPP), and Ruby Andrade, retired registrar of titles.
Kent Pantry, Q.C., director of public prosecutions, David Fraser, deputy director of public prosecutions, and Diahann Harrison, Crown Counsel, are representing the Crown.
