Women are spies, says Ebanks

(CNS): Two women who claim Leonard Antonio Ebanks confessed to them that he was involved in the murder of Frédéric Bise are police spies, Ebanks told police when he was interviewed by officers after his arrest. The West Bay man, who is the second person to be tried in the murder of the Swiss Banker in February 2008, has denied confessing to the women and told police he believed the women were police spies who were being paid to say things about him. The crown’s lead counsel in the case said that during police interviews Ebanks said the information the women had about the murder had not come from him but from “corrupt police” who had told the women what to say.

As Simon Russell Flint QC continued his opening address in Grand Court this week setting out the prosecution’s case against Ebanks for what was described as a savage and brutal killing, he said that the defendant had made confessions to two different women two years apart.  The details those women said he gave them, when they reported the confessions to the police, were things that only the killers could have known.

Despite this when confronted with the evidence of a former girlfriend and that of a helper at a house frequented by Ebanks in Birch Tree Hill, he said the women were lying and it was the “corrupt police” who had told them about the details of the murder.

Ebanks claimed that the first woman who alleged he had confessed, shortly after the crime, was “a woman scorned” because he had ended their relationship. He also said she was working as a spy as she was a secret special constable which is why she knew what she did. He said that the second witness was also a spy and was being paid by police to lie and say that he had confessed.

Russell Flint said that Ebanks’ former girlfriend was not working for the police and had told the police not only the details of the murder which he is alleged to have committed, with his cousin Chad Anglin, but that she had also seen property in Ebanks’ possession shortly after the crime that the crown says belonged to Bise.

She also said that on the morning of the murder he had come home to where the couple lived at the time, early in the morning before she left for work, drunk and smelling of smoke. The crown claim that Ebanks had taken the bloody clothes that he and Anglin were wearing, when they allegedly beat Bise to death by dropping a cinder block repeatedly on his head, and burned them in Anglin’s grandmother’s yard.

Ebank’s ex-girlfriend is unrelated to and does not know the second witness who was at this time in Jamaica.

However, two years later, when Ebanks had become friendly with the helper he had also allegedly confessed to her about the killing. Her evidence was uncovered by police during a completely separate investigation and it was as a result of her help in that investigation that she was under witness protection and as such was receiving some money from the police. 

As he presented the crown’s case against the defendant, Russel Flynn said both women had asked Ebanks after his confessions why he had committed the murder and both stated to police that he had described Bise who was gay was a “faggot” and said that he owed Ebanks and Anglin $1000. He had also said that Anglin was also gay and that before the killing Anglin and Bise had been at the banker’s home together. They then went to the dykes at Barkers which, Ebanks told the women, was when he met Anglin and Bise and that was where they had killed “the white man”. After committing the savage murder the two man had placed him in the boot of his own car which they then drove around West Bay. Eventually they returned to Bise’s house and parked the car and set it on fire. Shortly after the fire service were called and the body was discovered.

Although police had arrested both Chad Anglin and Leonard Ebanks in the immediate wake of the crime the case eventually stalled when the director of public prosecutions told the police they did not have enough evidence to prosecute.

However, following the creation of the cold case unit in the RCIPS in 2012 detectives reviewed the case and re interviewed witnesses. As a result a new file was passed to the DPP last year and both Anglin and Ebanks were charged.  Anglin was tried and convicted of the murder in April this year.

Ebanks’ trial, which is presided over by Justice Charles Quin, continues next week with the first of the crown’s witnesses in Grand Court One.