The Court of Appeal on Tuesday rejected the appeal of a man found guilty of the murder of a pregnant woman.

Alister Williams was sentenced to 55 years' imprisonment in 2020, after he was convicted of the September 2016 murder of 35-year-old Guyanese teacher Marisha Bowen.

Bowen was found naked in a blood-soaked bed with a belt around her neck in her apartment on Red Sea Road. She had been strangled and stabbed repeatedly in the neck.

Williams' DNA was found under her fingernails, in blood near the bedroom door and her vagina.

He was also found with cellphones that belonged to Bowen and her son.

According to an oral statement made to Inspector Addison Ferguson following his arrest near a grocery store in Garden Hills, Williams claimed that another man was responsible for the murder. However, Williams reportedly told the officer that he got the phones from the killer.

Public defender James Thompson argued that the oral statement ought not to have been admitted into evidence since the trial judge did not allow Williams' interview into evidence after police could not satisfactorily explain how he received injuries to his body.

Thompson also argued that the case ought to have been withdrawn at the close of the prosecution's case because the evidence was tenuous.

The Court of Appeal rejected Thompson's grounds of appeal.

The court ruled that there was no suggestion that Williams made the alleged statements under duress, but rather that he never made them.

The justices of appeal said while it was regrettable that the trial judge didn't give a robust direction on how to treat the alleged oral statement, it was not fatal to the case.

The court said, "The oral statements made by the intended appellant to Officer Ferguson were not the only evidence against him.

"The DNA evidence was compelling and he was found in possession of the cellphones belonging to the deceased and her son.

"The DNA evidence was compelling evidence that he was at the scene of the homicide and the oral statements to the police went no further than to confirm his presence at the scene.

"The presence of the intended appellant's DNA in the deceased's vagina and under the deceased's fingernails could lead a jury to be satisfied that the intended appellant was guilty of murder."

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