Caribbean 'Serial Killer' Sentenced to 30 Years
Kathron “Cuchi” Fortune, a Grenada-born man long accused of multiple murders across Saint Martin/Sint Maarten, has received a separate 30-year prison sentence in Guadeloupe for the 2006 torture and killing of Angélique Chauviré. The sentence follows an earlier life term with a 22-year minimum for two other killings and comes amid a complex multi-jurisdictional legal process involving French, Dutch and Dutch Caribbean courts.
Kathron “Cuchi” Fortune, 47, was handed a 30-year prison term in Guadeloupe on Wednesday for the 2006 torture and killing of Angélique Chauviré on the island of Saint Martin, French authorities said. The sentence — with at least 20 years to be served before eligibility for review — follows an earlier life sentence imposed in September for two other murders.
The verdict was delivered at the Assize court in Basse-Terre, where two trials were held in September and October. On 25 September Fortune received a life sentence with a 22-year minimum for the deaths of Jomo Maynard and Gilbert Hyman in 2005 and 2006. The most recent 30-year sentence is distinct and relates solely to Chauviré's killing.
Defense and victims' lawyers reacted strongly to the ruling. Sandra Chirac-Kollarik, representing the Chauviré family, described the verdict as "a relief, given the savagery that this 31-year-old woman suffered." Maitre Karine Linon, counsel for the Hyman family, said the case is "unusual" and will "go down in history" because it involves what she described as a serial killer.
Fortune, originally from Grenada, has a long criminal history across different jurisdictions. He was previously convicted by Dutch courts for the 2005 murder of Ervin Margarita and given a 21-year sentence in 2007. He escaped custody during a doctor's visit in February 2016 and later committed two further killings in December 2016 — the deaths of Luis Sarante Diaz and Edwin Rosario Contreras in Sint Maarten — for which he was convicted in June 2019.
Bodies were discovered months later in a lagoon several miles from Simpson Bay Resort. Fortune fled to Saint Kitts in July 2017 armed and in body armour but was arrested and returned to Sint Maarten. Hurricane Irma's 2017 damage to local prison facilities prompted transfers through Curaçao to a maximum-security facility in the Netherlands.
While imprisoned in the Netherlands he was tried in absentia by a French court in 2020 and sentenced, but he successfully challenged that hearing and secured a new trial in which he could be present. Guadeloupe's attorney general, Élodie Rouchouse, told the court the case was complicated by crimes occurring across French and Dutch jurisdictions, requiring lengthy exchanges of authorisations and translated judgments under international agreements.
Throughout the Guadeloupe trials Fortune maintained his innocence, telling jurors he could not confess to crimes he says he did not commit. Fortune's lawyer, Gérald Coralie, has confirmed appeals have been filed in both Guadeloupe cases. Authorities say Fortune will be returned to the Netherlands later this month and that the appeals process is expected to be heard in Paris.
For residents of the British Virgin Islands, the case underscores the challenges of regional policing and judicial cooperation in the Caribbean when crimes and suspects cross multiple territories and legal systems. It also highlights the importance of continued collaboration on extraditions, prisoner transfers and information-sharing among neighbouring jurisdictions.
Primary source: VINO