Search Results for 'tyrone burrell'
Ebanks acquitted of murder
(CNS): A jury took until late in the evening Monday to reach the unanimous verdict that Leonard Antonio Ebanks was not guilty of murder but guilty of accessory after the fact in the killing of 40-year-old Swiss Banker, Frederic Bise, in 2008. During his summation, the judge explained to the jury that if they did not believe Ebanks was one of the killers but that he may have assisted in the aftermath of the murder, they could return the alternative guilty verdict of accessory. Following the murder acquittal, an emotional Ebanks, who is already serving a life sentence for the murder ofTyrone Burrell in 2010, was scheduled by the court to be sentenced on Wednesday.
The evidence that supported the case against Ebanks came only from two women who claimed that he had confessed to being involved in the murder with his cousin, Chad Anglin, who was convicted of killing Bise earlier this year. There were no eye-witnesses or forensic evidence or any other circumstantial evidence that placed Ebanks at the scene of Bise’s killing.
There were differences in women’s evidence against Ebanks. One implied that Ebanks may have turned up after Bise was dead and the other said he had claimed to be part of the killing.
There were also significant inconsistencies in the evidence given by both of them, not just between the accounts they each gave on the stand during the trial, which they said had come from Ebanks, but in their own witness statements and interviews with the police over the five years since Bise’s body was discovered in the back of his own burned out car in Mount Pleasant West Bay on 8 February 2008.
Ebanks had emphatically denied killing Bise when he took the stand and insisted the evidence from his ex-lover was a lie made up out of malice, as she went to the police on the night he left her to go back to his wife.
The second woman was the helper at a local drug yard in West Bay, where Ebanks, a self-confessed crack addict, frequented. He claimed she had lied because she was desperate and was saying what she did for money, as the police had placed her in a paid witness protection programme after she gave what Ebanks claimed was untruthful evidence against him in the Burrell murder case, which led to his conviction in that case.
On this occasion, however, the evidence from the women raised doubts about Ebanks' guilt regarding his part in the brutal murder, leaving the jury to conclude that Ebanks was not the killer but may have assisted Anglin and whoever else may have been involved in the banker’s death.
Bise, the crown believes, was killed following an encounter with Anglin and Ebanks in a sex-for-money deal. During the trial the court heard that, having recently divorced, Bise, who was homosexual, began living a fully open gay life, and according to friends, was engaging in increasingly risky behaviour, seeking sex with multiple men and looking for partners to engage in outdoor sex romps.
Lawyer claims nothing new in cold case
(CNS): As Courtney Griffiths QCsummarised the case for Leonard Ebanks, who has denied killing Swiss Banker Frederic Bise, the lawyer said nothing had changed in the evidence regarding the case since the original investigation, when the police believed then there was insufficient evidence against his client. The only thing that was different now, Griffiths told the court on Friday, was that his client had in the interim been tried and convicted of another murder. Griffiths said there was not a single shred of new evidence against Ebanks in this case that the cops did not have in 2010, when he was not even arrested because the evidence was so scant. But now, on the same evidence, his client was charged with a murder he had nothing to do with.
As a result of Ebanks' early conviction for the fatal shooting of Tyrone Burrell in September 2010 largely being based on an alleged confession he made to a helper who worked in the yard where Burrell was killed, the lawyer said that the crown knew that the jury would hear about his existing conviction. He said that Ebanks was forced to talk about that killing when he took the stand in this case, and as a result the police knew he would be an easy target.
Although the crown had insisted there was no conspiracy to try and frame an innocent man, Griffiths said there was not a shred of real evidence against his client. The entire case is based on the contradictory and inconsistence evidence given by the helper, who claimed Ebanks confessed to her on several occasions, and a former girlfriend, who said he had confessed to her once.
Despite the fundamentals of their stories being similar and the women allegedly were not known to each other, Griffiths pointed out that the women could very easily have colluded in their stories as they live just yards apart. Ebanks’ ex-girlfriend went to the police on the night he left her to go back to his wife and the helper made herstatement of an alleged confession only after she had already become a paid protected witness.
With no other eye witnesses, no forensic evidence, a considerable amount of speculation by the crown on what actually happened to Bise after he left Kelly’s bar with Chad Anglin in the early morning hours of 8 February, Griffiths told the jury that they should not convict his client as he wasn’t there and knew nothing about the murder.
He pressed home the fact that even when the cold case team took over the investigation and conducted what was supposedly a thorough investigation, after allegations that the first one was “unsatisfactory”, he said no new evidence came to light. He pointed out that one police officer had dismissed the allegations made by Ebanks’ former lover as possibly malicious.
The lawyer noted that even with the second alleged confession evidence from the helper two years later, police said evidence was still insufficient to charge Ebanks.
Griffiths noted that a criminal trial is not a “beauty contest” and he was not asking the jury to like his client, who was an admitted drug addict and criminal. But he pointed out that the verdict they returned had to be based on the evidence and the only true verdict was one of not guilty.
Justice Charles Quin, the presiding judge in the case, will be summing up the evidence for the jury Monday morning and directing them in the law. Ebanks has been charged with murder but the jury will also be offered the alternative count of aiding and abetting.
Chad Anglin has already been convicted of killing the Swiss banker after he was seen on CCTV with the victim at Kelly’s bar in West Bay and seen by witnesses leaving the bar with Bise. Anglin’s DNA was also found at the victim's house on cigarette butts and his car.
The crown claims that Ebanks assisted Anglin to murder Bise with a concrete block, possible in the Barkers area. The crown says the men then drove around West Bay with the body in the back of the vehicle before the car was returned to the house in Mount Pleasant, where Bise was living, and set it alight.
Although the crown did not set out a clear and precise motive, it has claimed that Bise, who was gay and living and increasingly risky lifestyle, had entered into a sex for money arrangement with Anglin and Ebanks on the night he was killed.
Ebanks: ‘I didn’t kill Bise’
(CNS): Leonard Antonio Ebanks repeatedly denied killing a Swiss Banker in 2008 with Chad Anglin, when he took the stand in court this week. The West Bay man said there was not a “scintilla of truth” to the allegations against him that he had killed Frederic Bise with Chad Anglin, which come exclusively from two women. One he said is a scorned ex-girlfriend whom he admitted treating badly and who, he said, was having sex with most of the local police force. The other he accused of practicing Obeah and saying whatever the police told her to say because she was desperate for money. Owning up to a long criminal history because of drug addiction he denied being a murderer.
However, the court heard the details of Ebanks’ conviction for the killing of Tyrone Burrell, in 2010, which he also denied. He said the evidence against him in that case again came from the paid witness and the judge had believed her as oppose to all the evidence that indicated he had not killed Burrell.
Ebanks (44) who was belligerent and argumentative undercrosss examination at times was still clear and emphatic on the stand as he gave an account of his life at the time of the Bise killing in 2008 when he was living on Birch Tree Hill Road in West Bay. He said he couldn’t remember exactly what he was doing on the night Bise was killed, or any specific day, as at that time his life was all about hustling for money to get a fix of crack and he said he was using both cocaine and ganja heavily at the time.
But over and over Ebanks told the court that, “I have no knowledge of when he was killed, why he was killed, or who killed him,” as he denied the murder.
He recalled meeting Bise, on one occasion at Maccabucca in West Bay some time towards the end of 2007, when he was in the company of man who Ebanks knew and who was known to be gay.
But Ebanks said he had never been to Bise’s house and knew nothing aboutthe killing until after the fact when the word spread around West Bay. He said he didn’t know anything about what Chad Anglin was up to and he said he could not vouch for him but he was not withAnglin on the night Bise was killed and he did not drop blocks on the man or help Anglin with the body or anything else.
Ebanks said he was not particularly close with his cousin and they did not hang in the same circles. He pointed out that despite the claims by the witnesses that he and Anglin had communicated that night there was no telephone evidence to link them. He noted that while Anglin was seen leaving Kelly’s Bar with Bise and his DNA was found at the house and in the dead man’s car, there was nothing that suggested he had been anywhere near, Bise or Anglin. Ebanks said he was not involved at all.
He denied driving around West Bay with the body of Bise in the murdered man’s car, as one witnesses had alleged, claiming not only was he not driving that night he did not drive at all and got around on a bicycle. That point was supported by another witness who had known him all his life who told the court that he never seen Ebanks drive a car.
Ebanks pointed to inconsistencies and differing statements given by the two women against him. He told the jury that his former girlfriend had very close relationships with the West Bay police and at some point had said she was a special constable. Ebanks said he later learned that she had gone to the police alleging he had confessed to her that he was involved in the Bise murder on the day after he walked out on her and gone back to his wife.
Ebanks said that he had been taken aback by the confession from the helper who worked at the local drug yard in West Bay which he frequented as he said they were friendly. But he believed she was desperate. As a result he said she was persuaded to lie about him as a result of the cash inducement of the witness protection programme. He said at the time she made up the allegations she had complained repeatedly of many problems and not getting paid at her job.
Despite rigorous cross examination by the crown’s leading QC, Simon Russell Flint, Ebanks did not waiver about not killing Bise and although he told the jury that he was “fighting not to tell this man some bad things” he said he was not the killer and did not know who was.
When the QC asked if Ebanks if he was “a batty boy” a term brandished around during the trial in reference to Bise being gay and that Ebanks himself had a local reputation as a homosexual he denied that he was gay or that he had ever had sex with men for money to get drugs. He said Flint was “talking rubbish of the highest order,” as he struggled to rein in his temper.
He emphasized the common mistrust of the police in the district and alleged conspiracies and corruption as he repeatedly denied not just the Bise killing but the Tyrone murder as well. He implied that the police had assisted the women to coordinate their stories.
Ebanks said he was no saint and throughout his life his cocaine addiction had driven him to do many things including burglary, assault and even robbery but he said he never killed anyone.
2nd witness alleges confession
(CNS): A woman who had worked as a helper in a notorious yard in West Bay told the court repeatedly Monday that Leonard Antonio Ebanks had confessed to her that he had killed a white man by hitting him twice on the head with a block because he was homosexual and owed him a $1,000. The woman, who is in the witness protection programme and cannot be named, revealed that she had later discovered that the man was 40-year-old Swiss banker, Frederic Bise, whose body was found in February 2008 in the back of his own burned out car. Despite rigorous cross-examination by the defence attorney, the woman stuck to her story that Ebanks had confessed to the murder.
As the crown called the woman as a key witness to support its case that Ebanks, along with Chad Anglin, had killed Bise in the early morning hours of 8 February 2008, the court also heard that she had told police that Ebanks had confessed to the murder of Tyrone Burrell.
Burrell had been shot and killed in the yard where the woman had lived and worked as a helper in September 2010. Ebanks was convicted of that murder a year later in September 2011 and is currently serving a life sentence, the jury heard. The witness said that after that killing and Ebanks’ confession over the white man, she had gone to the police to “talk what she know”.
She told the court she was afraid and believed “he was born a killer and a wrong doer". She said, "All I was trying to do was get out of that yard before my life go too.”
After telling the police about the confession regarding the Burrell murder, the police placed the woman in witness protection overseas with an allowance of $400 per month. After she signed the agreement she also told the police that Ebanks had confessed to killing Bise.
Defence attorney Courtenay Griffiths QC pointed out that she had received over $53,000 from the Cayman public purse as a protected witness over the last four years, as he implied she was making up the confession in order to get the money. The woman denied that and said she had volunteered to be a witness and insisted that Ebanks had made the confession on several occasions.
She told the court that she had met Ebanks, whom she knew as Tonio and Mad Max, at the house in Birch Tree Hill where she was a helper as he came to the location frequently. She confirmed that the house was where both Damion Ming and Tyrone Burrell were killed in gang related shootings and that drugs were being sold at the property. Despite being a staunch Christian and aware of the goings on there, she said she had come to Cayman to work and until she could get a permit to go elsewhere she had to stay.
She said she knew Tonio was a drug addict who used coke but he was very friendly and talkative. The witness said it was several weeks after she met him that he told her about killing the white man. She said he spoke about the murder to her several times and said, “One time he went to the white man’s house and hit him with block and the man dead and drove him around West Bay …”
She said he told her that he had brought the man’s body to the house where she worked but he had been told to take the body away, so he took the car back to Bise’s house “and set the vehicle afire with the man in it”.
At first, she said, she did not say anything about the confession as she was not completely convinced he was telling the truth and she was unaware of the murder at the time. But after he told her he had killed Burrell as well, she went to the police about both confessions, she said.
Although Griffiths queried some discrepancies in the woman’s statements over the timeline of the confessions, the woman did not waver from her position and repeatedly stated that Tonio had told her he had hit the white man twice on the head with a block and killed him “because he was a faggot and he owed him 1,000 Cayman Islands dollars”.
Ebanks has denied killing Bise and claims that the two women who told police that he confessed to them are lying and are being paid by the police to give evidence against him. The crown’s case against him continues this week before a jury with Justice Charles Quin presiding in Grand Court One.
Charges in cold case killing
(CNS): Police have filed charges against two serving inmates for the murder of Frederick Bise, who was killed over five and a half years ago in West Bay. The 40-year-old Swiss banker’s beaten body was found in the boot of his own a burnt out car outside his home in Mount Pleasant in February 2008. Police revealed Thursday that following an almost two year investigation by the Cold Case Unit they had brought charges against two men, aged 33 and 42. Although police refused to name the prisoners, who are due in court next Friday, CNS has learned they are Chad Anglin, who is serving a five year sentence for indecent assault and wounding following an attack on a woman in West Bay in 2010, and Leonard Antonio Ebanks, who is already serving a life sentence for the murder of Tyrone Burrell, also in West Bay, in 2010.
Crown pursues murder cases
(CNS): Although Raziel Jeffers' conviction for the murder of Marcus Ebanks was upheld by the Court of Appeal, condemning the 28-year-old West Bay man to a life behind bars, the crown intends to continue with two other charges against him. Jeffers has also been charged with the murder of Damion Ming and Marcus Duran, two fatal shootings which occurred within days of each other in West Bay in 2010. Trials have now been set for August and October of next year. In both cases the primary evidence presented by the crown is the alleged confession that Jeffers made to his ex-lover.
The court dismissed Jeffers' appeals last week, which were made primarily on two grounds. The first was that the trial judge had been biased against the defendant as a result of seeing a damning police dossier and intelligence report relating to local gang activity which pointed to Jeffers as a one of the most dangerousmen in Cayman. The second grounds of appeal was that telephone evidence which demonstrated that the crown’s key witness had lied about the day of the shooting in Bonaventure Lane was never put before the trial judge.
The appeal was dismissed, however, and although the defence was given an opportunity to present a third ground relating to gunshot residue contamination (GSR) particles found on Jeffers at the time of his arrested shortly after the shooting, in which teenager Adryan Powell was also paralysed and three other boys were also shot at, the defence has not pursued this route.
A police report recently revealed GSR at George Town police station, the police vehicles and equipment, as well as officers, bringing into question GSR evidence. However, Jeffers’ defence team acknowledged that the conviction against their client did not hang on the GSR.
Meanwhile, the Court of Appeal also dismissed the appeal of Leonard Ebanks for the murder of Tyrone Burrell in Birch Tree Hill, West Bay, in September 2010. The main evidence against Ebanks had been based on the evidence of a woman whom Ebanks had allegedly confessed his crime to.
However, the defence team had said that the witness has claimed to have had visions and dreams foretelling the future, and as a result claimed she was a fantasist who had made up the confession, and with no direct corroborating evidence, the trial judge had misdirected himself. However, the court dismissed the appeal.
The appeal court begins its final week Monday with an appeal by Devon Anglin against his conviction for the murder of Carlos Webster in a West Bay Road nightclub in 2009. His was the first conviction in Cayman using entirely anonymous witnesses and the findings of the higher court in this case could set a precedence for future use of witnesses who are identified only to the trial judge.
Related article on CNS:
http://centos6-httpd22-php56-mysql55.installer.magneticone.com/o_belozerov/31115drupal622/crime/2012/11/26/jeffers-murder-appeal-fails
http://centos6-httpd22-php56-mysql55.installer.magneticone.com/o_belozerov/31115drupal622/crime/2012/01/24/jeffers-killer-says-ex-lover
http://centos6-httpd22-php56-mysql55.installer.magneticone.com/o_belozerov/31115drupal622/crime/2012/10/12/cops-contaminated-gsr
http://centos6-httpd22-php56-mysql55.installer.magneticone.com/o_belozerov/31115drupal622/crime/2011/09/30/judge-finds-ebanks-guilty
Judge left to consider latest murder case
(CNS): Leonard Antonio Ebanks was remanded in custody to Northward prison on Thursday lunchtime after his defence lawyer answered the crown’s case against him with a closing argument before Justice Charles Quin in the Grand Court. The judge who is trying the case alone now has to weigh the evidence against Ebanks who is charged with the murder of Tyrone Burrell (20), who was shot in the head, and killed in September last year at a Yard in Birch Tree Hill, West Bay. The shooting was believed to be the last gang related killing for almost twelve months before the sudden resurgence of gang violence in the district last week.
Justice Quin told the court before it was adjourned that depending on his own case load he would endeavour to deliver a verdict in the case before the end of next week.
Having called no witnesses on his own behalf, Ebanks’ attorney told the judge that there was considerable doubt in the crown’s case against his client. He pointed out that there were no witnesses to the crime and no forensic evidence against his client. Although the lawyer said his client was at the house in Birch Tree Hill on the night of the shooting, along with as many as twenty other people who came and went to the yard, by his own admission no one saw him with a gun on the night in question.
The crown’s case depends heavily on the evidence of Arlene White, who worked as a helper at the house in Birch Tree Hill. She said that she saw Ebanks run into the yard all dressed in black seconds before the shooting. At a later date she said that Ebanks had confessed to the killing of Burrell to her, as well as another serious crime. She also told the court that she had seen the defendant with a gun on many occasions and he had shown the weapon to her.
The crown’s case had also suggested that Ebanks had a motives as he had told people including, a police officer, that he was connected to the Birch Tree Hill gang and was an elder of the community. Ebanks reportedly believed that Burrell was responsible for shooting a house of gang member’s family and that he was a spy, carrying news from theBirch Tree Hill gang to the Logwoods gang.
Ebanks’ attorney however, rejected the claims of a motive and dismissed the witness stating that her evidence was “inconsistence, full of omissions and unreliable.” Following her own admission on the stand of visions, before Burrell was killed, the lawyer said she was a fantasist whose account could not be relied upon to base a conviction. The only appropriate verdict which the judge could return was one of not guilty, the defence counsel concluded.
Police appeal for calm
(CNS): The RCIPS has launched a murder enquiry following the shooting of 28-year-old Robert Mackford Bush (left) in West Bay last night (Tuesday 13 September) and officers are appealing for calm. Senior police officers confirmed that Bush was shot in the head while sitting in a blue Honda civic at around 11:20pm at the junction of Capts Joe and Osbert Road in the Birch Tree Hill. Police say they are not ruling out the possibility that this was a gang related shooting but because the enquiry is still in its very early stages they are unable to speculate on the motive behind the first fatal shooting in twelve months.
At a press briefing Wednesday Chief Superintendent John Jones appealed for calm and asked the community to come forward with any information that could assist the police in ensuring the perpetrators of the crime are brought to justice as quickly as possible. He said that at the moment the police could not say that it was a retaliatory crime or what other crimes it may be linked to but he did confirm that the recent release over the last few months of several young men from prison was of concern to the RCIPS.
Although unable to offer many details about the shooting or any descriptions of the possible suspects, the police confirmed that a woman who was in the car when the victim was shot was also treated in hospital for injuries sustained at the same time, but could not say if she had been shot as well.
Officers were also unable to confirm speculation thatBush had been killed with a shotgun or how many times the victim was shot. However, Jones stated that he had received at least one wound to the head and had died at the scene. Jones further revealed that emergency services, including the Uniform Support Group, were on the scene within five minutes of the call being received from the woman who was with Bush in the car. He also said that specially trained firearms dogs had been deployed at the scene.
At this stage no arrests have been made and the police did not say if they were hunting for more than one gunman. They did confirm that Bush was arrested and charged in July for an assault in connection with an incident which took place at a bar in Hell, West Bay, in July, for which the victim had been bailed.
Jones and DS Marlon Bodden said that police were now following up on the intelligence, which they hoped to convert into evidence.
The shooting took place in what is becoming a notorious spot for serious crime and very close to the yard where both Damion Ming and Tyrone Burrel were killed last year in gang related shootings.
“One would have thought by now, given the number of incidents in the area, that the community would be extremely alert and ready to pass on the information to police,” Bodden said as he pleaded with witnesses to come forward. Jones said that in recent months police had seen an increase in the amount of information being given to the police and asked for that to continue, as both officers pointed out the need to get solid evidence in order to lead to a conviction.
Jones said the extra funds voted by government would help the police get into the faces of all of the suspects in the neighbourhood that are associated with gun crime and turn the intelligence into evidence. “The more resources we have, the more effectively we can target and bring them to court with solid evidence,” Jones added.
The last killing in Cayman was in October 2010, when Jack Forbes was beaten to death in a fight outside a liquor store in Bodden Town. One man has since been jailed after pleading guilty to mansluaghter in connection with the crime.
The last fatal shooting also took place in Birch Tree Hill in September 2010, when 20-year-old Tyrone Burrell was gunned down in the same yard in which Damion Ming was killed in March 2010. Leonard Ebanks is currently on trial this month in Grand Court accused of murdering Burrel.
Witness saw danger for victim
(CNS): The key prosecution witness in the crown's case against Leonard Ebanks for the murder of Tyrone Burrell told the court on Tuesday how she had visions that the young victim was in danger before he was shot. Arlene White, who worked at the house in Birch Tree Hill where Burrell was killed one year ago, said that before she ever met him she had seen Burrell in visions. When she met him for the first time some three weeks before he was killed, she had already sensed he was in danger. Hours before 20 year old Burrell was murdered, White told him to go home from the yard in Birch Tree Hill before night fell. “Every time I see that little youth I could see death, I could see trouble for him,” she said.
The first witness to take the stand in the case against Ebanks, White told the court that she had seen the defendant seconds before the killing rushing into the yard where Burrell was shot. She described him wearing black clothes, a black hat and having a black and white handkerchief wrapped around his hand – a very different outfit from the one he was wearing when he had left the yard earlier that afternoon.
White said that she had tried to warn Burrell to leave because of the danger she sensed but he had not listened to her warning. “Normally, when I pray, God shows me things and when I saw him, I could sense he was in danger.”
In his opening statement for the prosecution, Trevor Ward told the court that although no one had seen Leonard Ebanks pull the trigger, the crown intended to prove that he did.
Twenty-year-old Tyrone Burrell was killed by a single gunshot to the back of the head at 177 Birch Tree Hill on 8 September 2010. He was the sixth person to be shot and killed in a year that was marred with gun related killings.
The prosecuting counsel said Ebanks was seen at the murder scene both seconds before and after by witnesses, he had motive and, above all, he had confessed to Arlene White, whom he had known for several months and with whom he had a close rapport, that he was the gunman.
Ward said Ebanks believed that Burrell “had shot up Devon’s grandmother’s house and that he was a spy, carrying news from the Birch Tree Hill gang to the Logswoodgang,” and told this to White. The witness had also seen Ebanks some two weeks after the shooting with a revolver in his clothes, which he told her he need for protection, Ward revealed to the court.
At a later date, Ebanks had also told a police officer that he believed that Burrell had been trying to “set up the boys from Birch Tree Hill to be killed” because he had seen him leave the area many times to then meet with “Fat Patty from the Logswood gang at Kelly’s bar,” he had said. Ebanks told the police officer that he was “one of the elders of Birch Tree Hill” as he lived there.
Ward listed the evidence against Ebanks, saying he had been placed at the scene of the shooting, he had motive and had confessed to White. The lawyer stated that White had no reason to lie about the confession since she had been friends with Ebanks, who had spent a great deal of his time in the home where she was the helper. Even after his arrest Ebanks had still been friendly with White. “She has no motive to fabricate evidence against him,” Ward added.
The leading counsel for the crown told the judge that once all of the evidence was produced the court would find that Leonard Ebanks had murdered Tyrone Burrell.
The case, which is being tried by Justice Charles Quin alone without a jury, continues tomorrow in Grand Court.
Judge alone trials continue in firearms cases
(CNS): Another murder case involving afatal shooting is scheduled to open In Grand Court Monday and yet again the defendant has rejected trial by jury. Leonard Ebanks (39) who is charged with the murder of Tyrone Burrell who was gunned down during a social function almost one year ago, will appear before Justice Charles Quin to judge his fate. The 39 year old man is accused of killing 20 year old Burrell last year in Birch Tree Hill on 20 September during a social gathering. The police said at the time of the killing that Burell could have been a witness in another case but had never told police what he knew, however, his silence had not saved his life.
The fatal shooting took place in the same West Bay yard where Damion Ming was killed on the eve of his return to prison for drug related offences following the failure of an appeal against his conviction. Police have not stated if they believed Burrell had witness that killing or another gun related offence.
Ming was shot and killing in March 2010 in what was a peak period for shootings in West Bay. One man is currently in custody charged with Ming’s murder and that of two other men.
Over the last few months defendants have rejected juries in favour of judge alone trials in the last three firearms related murder and also in two case of attempted murders. So far judges have acquitted in all but one of the firearms case. A verdict in the case against Elmer Wright who was accused of robbing Mostyns Esso in Bodden Town and the attempted murder of a police officer is expected next