Suicide PC found murder victim’s body

(CNS): PC Rapael Williams, who was to take his own life this year, was the officer who found Damion Ming’s body lying under a boat when he and his colleague were the first police to arrive on the murder scene in Birch Tree Hill Road back in March 2010. Although several men had been present working on a boat at the West Bay yard when a gunman opened fire at the location, none of them realized that Damion Ming had been hit.  When PC Williams arrived at the scene just minutes after the 911 call was made, he was the officer who found Ming’s body and cordoned off what was then clearly a murder scene, the court heard Friday.

Williams’ evidence was read to the jury without being tested by the defence and was the second statement which had to be treated this way as a result of the death. Tyrone Burrel, who was also shot and killed in the very same yard some six months after Ming was murdered, had also given a statement to the police, though he had not identified Raziel Jeffers, the man accused of killing Ming.

The case against Jeffers continues this week in Court One before a twelve person jury and Justice Malcolm Swift. The crown’s key witness, Jeffers’ former lover, is expected to give evidence Monday.