Defendant’s ex-lover went to cops in wake of row

| 21/11/2014

(CNS): The court heard that the Leonard Antonio Ebanks’ former lover had gone to the police with the allegation that he had confessed to Frederic Bise’s murder just days after a major dispute between the two of them and the day after he walked out on her. As the case against Ebanks continued Thursday, his ex-girlfriend was probed extensively about the different accounts she had given to the police about the details of the confession by defence attorney, Courtenay Griffiths QC. In one, Ebanks had joined his alleged accomplice, Chad Anglin, with a third unknown man, at Bise’s house after the murder but in another he had gone to meet him alone at the dykes where he had witnessed the killing.

The witness repeatedly said she could not recall or explain why the accounts were so different other than her being confused, and having difficulty remembering what she had said to the police over the six years. However, the attorney said she had problems with the details because she was lying.

“The problem with telling lies is that you need to have a good memory and you don’t,” the lawyer shouted, as he subjected her to vigorous cross examination on behalf of his client Ebanks, implying her confession was fabricated as a result of malice.

However, the woman stuck to her position that Ebanks had told her he was involved in the Bise killing and that he and his cousin Anglin had killed the man because he owed Anglin money.

The West Bay man is accused of murdering Bise, a Swiss banker, whose badly beaten body was found in the back of his burned out car in February 2008 outside his Mount Pleasant home. The charges against him are based largely, the crown claims, on confessions made by two women who were not known to each other and who told the police that Ebanks had revealed his part in the killing to them two years apart.

When Ebanks’ former lover first took the stand, Thursday, she said that Ebanks had told her around two weeks after the killing that he and Anglin were alone when they killed the “white man” who, she said, was dressed as a woman, in the dykes. They had then taken his body back to the banker’s home in West Bay and set the car alight and Ebanks had then stolen items from the dead man’s home. The witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said that Ebanks had told her he had taken some jewellery from the banker’s home including a silver chain with a cross pendant. She also stated that she had found a number of other items in the closet that were taken after the murder.

Ebanks’ ex-lover also revealed that even though she had been told by him that the piece of jewellery had been stolen from the victim of the murder she wore the silver cross and chain to her baby’s christening service. However, under cross examination the court heard that both Bise’s wife and his close friend and landlady had told the police that the chain and pendent did not belong to Bise, despite her claim.

The attorney probed the witness hard about every detail of the confession, she had allegedly heard from Ebanks, as he accused her of lying because Ebanks had left her after an eight on-off relationship in which he had used her for sex and money. She had gone to the police the day after Ebanks had walked out on her.

However, the witness continued to deny that she was lying about Ebanks making the confession but could not remember all the details.

The lawyer also probed why she was in contact with a police officer, from the cold case unit, on an almost daily basis over the last few years leading up to the trial and the witness stated that it was the officer who was repeatedly calling her.

When Ebanks was arrested in April 2008 and then again in 2013 he had implied on both occasions that the police were paying his former lover to give them a witness statement against him and that the information that she had about the murder had not come from Ebanks but from the police.

Griffiths also attempted to shake the crown’s position that neither of the women who Ebanks had confessed to knew each other when he pointed out that she was well aware of where the woman lived as it was described as a “drug yard” frequented by Ebanks on a regular basis and a place that she had also visited. However, Ebanks’ ex denied ever going in despite admitting crossing the address on an almost daily basis as it was close to her own home.
The case continues Friday in Grand Court one with evidence from the same witness.

 

 

Category: Crime

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