Killer faces death penalty

A RUTHLESS, cold-blooded killer who gunned down Suffolk millionaire Tony Fetherston could hang after being found guilty of his shooting.

A jury in St Kitts, West Indies, found Joseph Hazel, 30, guilty by a majority of 10-2 of the murder of Mr Fetherston, 65, of Woodbridge, more than four years ago.

The jury took about two-and-a-half hours of deliberation before returning last night, just after 10pm British time, to deliver their verdict.

Dennis Merchant, director of public prosecutions, told the judge: "This is a matter appropriate for the death penalty."

The judge, Davidson Baptiste, adjourned sentencing until April 26 in the High Court, Basseterre, St Kitts, for psychiatric and social welfare reports.

Margaret Fetherston, of Woodbridge, and her daughter Alex, of London, were in court for the verdict at the end of a trial lasting more than a week.

Mrs Fetherston said afterwards: "I am very shocked at the moment and I do not know what I feel right now. It is just the end of a long nightmare.

"I do not feel any particular malice towards him. I just feel very sad that it ever happened. My husband will never come back so it does not matter to me whether he is guilty or not, it can not bring my husband back."

Mrs Fetherston added: "I am happy in one way but sad that a young man should have destroyed his own life. I will just have to try and get on with my life.'"

Miss Fetherston, 33, was on the telephone in New York to her mother in St Kitts when she heard her father being shot in the garden of the family's holiday home.

Miss Fetherston said, after the verdict: "I have enormous relief, enormous relief, this has been four years of hell."

There was uproar outside the court after the verdict. A man ran up and down the street shouting that Hazel would appeal.