PHILIPSBURG — Kathron Fortune has appealed the 30-year prison sentence the Assize Court in Basse Terre (Guadeloupe) handed down recently for the torture and killing of Angelique Chauviré in 2006 on the French side of the island.
Fortune, nicknamed Cuchi, has a long list of horrible crimes to his name; this inspired Maitre Karine Linon, the attorney representing the family of one of Fortune’s victims, to describe him as a serial killer.
The now 47-year old convict was already sentenced to life with a 22-year minimum sentence on September 25 for the killing of Jomo Maynard and Gilbert Hyman in 2005 and 2006 on Saint Martin, the Guardian reported.
Earlier, Fortune was sentenced for three other murders committed in Sint Maarten. In 2007 he received a 21-year sentence for the murder of 23-year old Ervin Margarita. He managed to escape during a doctor’s visit in February 2016. In December of that year, he killed Luis Sarante Diaz and Edwin Rosario Contreras at the Simpson Bay Resort. The reason for this crime was most likely a drugs-related rip-deal.
The bodies of Diaz and Contreras were found eight months after the killing in a lagoon.
After his escape in 2016, Fortune escaped to the neighboring island of St. Kitts, armed with a rifle, clad in body armor and carrying a large amount of cash. But in St. Kitts his luck ran out: he was arrested upon arrival and within a month he was extradited to St. Maarten, where he was put behind bars.
After Hurricane Irma damaged part of St. Maarten’s Pointe Blanche prison, Fortune was transferred to a prison in Curacao and from there to a maximum-security prison in the Netherlands.
While Fortune was serving time overseas, a French court handed down a life sentence in 2020 for the murders of Maynard, Hyman and Chauviré. His attorney successfully filed an appeal and demanded a trial whereby his client could be present.
Throughout his trial in Guadeloupe, Fortune maintained his innocence. “I know the truth will come out but I cannot give you the truth because I do not know anything about it,” the Guardian reported. “I did a lot of bad things in my life. I am not proud of them, but I don’t see why I should be convicted for a crime I did not do.”
Fortune’s lawyer Gérald Coralie told the Guardian that his client will be returned to the Netherlands and that his appeal will be heard in a court in Paris. Of the 30-year sentence the court in Guadeloupe handed down, Fortune will have to serve at least twenty, unless his appeal is successful.
Click here for all related articles>>>
###
ADVERTISEMENT
