“Big Foot” appeals 33-year jail sentence for hotelier’s murder.

Another convicted killer wants his freedom. 

This time, 28-year-old Bryan Leitch, who is serving a 33-year jail sentence for manslaughter, is contesting both his conviction and prison term at the Court of Appeal of Guyana.

Following a trial before Justice Sandil Kissoon in 2018, Leitch was found unanimously guilty of the November 14, 2013, unlawful killing of Joseph Jagdeo, 62, whose bound and gagged body was found under a bed in one of the rooms of his South Road, Georgetown hotel.

Dead: Joseph Jagdeo

Despite the jury’s verdict, Leitch, at  his sentencing hearing, had professed his innocence, claiming he knew nothing about the killing and had not killed anyone. 

However, a Police witness had testified that Leitch admitted to killing the hotelier, stating that it was not intentional. According to the witness, Leitch had said that he became angry when Joseph had asked him to leave the hotel. 

As a result, he held him down, stuffed and tied his mouth, tied his hands, and pushed him under the room’s bed before leaving the room key on the bed.

Leitch then took the now-dead man’s cell phone and left the hotel. In his confession statement, the felon had told a detective, “Me ain’t guh fuh kill he… I sorry fuh wah happen.”

After Jagdeo’s employees did not see him the following day, they became concerned about his whereabouts and forced their way into the room where they found his motionless body.

Police ranks were later summoned to the scene.  Police Headquarters had revealed that Jagdeo’s cause of death was given as asphyxia due to manual strangulation.