Standing handcuffed between his attorneys and wearing green prison garb, a Jersey City man originally from Guyana, on Monday pleaded guilty to charges of killing his wife, her mother and her sister in their Fox Place home.
Alim Hassan, 32, stood silent except for brief answers mumbled to the judge's questions as he entered his pleas. He pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and one count of manslaughter for the July 30, 2002 slayings of his wife, Marlyn Hassan, 29, who was pregnant with twins; her sister, Sharon Yassim, 30; and the women's mother, Bernadette Seajatan, 49.
According to a report in the Jersey Journal recounting the incident, the bodies were found by Yassim's two sons - Andrew, who was 6 at the time, and Christopher, who was 2 - when they woke up in their Fox Place home on July 30.
Hassan could face up to 30 years in prison, without the possibility of parole, for each of the two murders, said Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Mary Ellen Gaffney. He also could face an additional 30 years on the manslaughter charge, she said.
Gaffney said she would ask for the maximum of 90 years during the sentencing hearing in March.
"He pleaded guilty because he's taking responsibility for what he did to his family," said Hudson County Prosecutor Edward DeFazio. "We are satisfied. We feel justice has been served. It's a horrific course of conduct perpetuated against the victims in this case."
Eight members of the victims' family attended the hearing, including a sister of Seajatan who flew in from London. They all appeared exhausted, but they united to support one another.
"Every time they have this hearing at court, I'm travelling from London," said Claudette Ishmael, 55. "His parents can still see him (Hassan) in prison, but we have to go to the grave site."
Another of Seajatan's sisters, Lynette Foo, 53, of Jersey City, said that there are no words to describe her family's grief.
Family members said they accepted the lengthy sentence Hassan would likely face, but said they had been hoping for the death penalty.
"All I need to know is that he comes out in a coffin. We had to watch three coffins come out of the funeral home," Foo said, tears streaming down her face.
"He destroyed so many lives, not just the five," she said, speaking of the three adult victims and the unborn twins her sister was carrying. "I would still love to ask him why he did it."
Baldeo Seajatan, 53, was distraught as he spoke after yesterday's hearing, grieving the loss of his wife, two daughters and two unborn grandchildren.
His eyes bloodshot by the tears he shed throughout the hearing, Seajatan lifted a finger to point to a white round pin he wore on his gray sweater with the faces of his wife and two daughters.
"I don't know how I'm still alive. I didn't like him (Hassan) in the first place," he said.
One of the family's biggest concerns now is what will happen to Yassim's two young sons.
"I never expected something like this," said Neisha Yassim, 66, Sharon Yassim's mother-in-law, who is helping Yassim's husband raise the two boys. "I'm too old to look after these kids. I am a sickly woman. Sharon's husband cries every day. He (Hassan) deserves to be hanged."
The motives for the murders remain unclear, but the family thinks it was triggered by religious reasons and money matters. They said that Alim Hassan, a Muslim, married Marlyn for money, but never accepted her Hindu faith.
"It's sad when you have to break it down to religion and greed," said Donna Duesbury, 34, Foo's daughter. "He (Hassan) came into luxury. He didn't have to sweat for anything he had."
Duesbury, the first relative to find the bodies, recalled the gruesome scene she found at her cousins' home the morning after the murders when Yassim's two sons ran out of the home to tell a neighbour that their mother, aunt and grandmother had been killed.
"When I got there, Andrew and Chris were in the street and I grabbed them and started walking toward the house, and Andrew said 'They are all dead,'" she said. "I looked up and saw a bloody handprint on my aunt's bedroom window."
Alim Hassan fled the scene of the incident after stabbing his wife 23 times, his mother-in-law 27 times and his sister-in-law 19 times.
He made his way to a relative's home in central New Jersey, and from there caught a bus to Canada. That night, he was arrested at a border crossing near Buffalo, N.Y., by Canadian police, DeFazio said.