Former teachers' college student gets 18 months for role in gruesome Mona murder

An ex-teachers' college student who had assisted his Trinidadian teacher friend in the gruesome 2018 murder of 13-year-old Shanoya Wray was yesterday sentenced to one year and six months in prison under a plea deal.

Leonardo Maddan was sentenced by Justice Cayls Wiltshire after he pleaded guilty to misprision of felony in the Home Circuit Court. Misprision of felony is a crime committed when a person knows that someone has been involved in a felony but fails to report it to law enforcement.

Her killer, Sanju Maharaj, is currently serving a 34-year sentence in relation to her death and for sexually assaulting her.

Wray's remains were discovered inside Maharaj's bathtub on Whalley Close in Mona, St Andrew, on Friday, July 20, 2018.

Maharaj had poured caustic soda and other chemicals on her body, causing it to deteriorate rapidly.

Maddan, who is about 24, was found at the premises when police discovered the teen's remains.

The Trinidadian national had sexually assaulted Wray months before he lured her away from her August Town home in St Andrew and ended her life.

He pleaded guilty to her murder last June and was sentenced to 21 years for the crime.

He also pleaded guilty to four counts of having sexual intercourse with a person under 16 and was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment.

The foreign national was also given a further two years for trying to dispose of a corpse.

The sentencing judge had ruled that the sentences are to run consecutively.

Wray, a student of New Day All-Age School, went missing from her home in July 2018. Five days later, her skeletal remains were found soaking in a bathtub with chemical liquid at Maharaj's rented premises on Whalley Close.

Maharaj's neighbours became suspicious after they smelled rotting flesh for days and saw the Trinidadian attempting to burn what appeared to be female clothing and braids.

This prompted one of the residents to peek into a section of the house, where what appeared to be a body was seen and the police were alerted.

The police reported then that most of the body had been dissolved in the corrosive substance and that only two pieces of bone had been left with a small piece of flesh which was used to confirm Wray's identity through DNA testing.

-Tanesha Mundle

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