First witness set to take stand as Clover Graham murder trial starts
Published:Friday | January 13, 2023 | 1:15 AM
The first witness is expected to take the stand today as the long-awaited murder trial for the man accused of kidnapping and killing attorney-at-law Clover Graham gets under way in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.
Quron Patterson, otherwise called ‘Q’, of Gordon Pen in Spanish Town, St Catherine, will be tried on charges of murder, kidnapping, robbery with aggravation, burglary and murder.
The trial was scheduled to start on Thursday, but was pushed back to Friday. As a result, Patterson’s bail was extended.
The university lecturer was found with her throat slashed in bushes at Caymanas Estate, St Catherine, on August 19, 2012, hours after she was reported missing by her family.
The Crown is alleging that Graham, who was employed to the Legal Aid Clinic in Kingston, was taken from her home and then murdered.
An autopsy revealed that she died from an incised wound to the neck.
Patterson was among three men who were arrested and charged with murder and conspiracy to murder in October 2012 in connection to her killing.
Attorney-at-law Zara Lewis is representing Patterson.
Graham was a lecturer at The University of Technology, Jamaica, and the Norman Manley Law School on the Mona campus of The University of the West Indies.
She also worked as the United Nations High Commission on Refugees’ honorary liaison officer in Jamaica.
Her murder came five years after her son Taiwo McKenzie and his girlfriend Jhannel Whyte were killed in a similar fashion by men who demanded a ransom after a motor vehicle crash.
The bodies with the throats slashed were found in bushes in Mount Salus near Smokey Vale, St Andrew, on November 9, 2007.
The couple – dubbed the ‘Good Samaritans’ – were kidnapped and killed when they went to deliver medical supplies to two men involved in a motor vehicle accident with McKenzie.
Andre Ennis and Shane Brown were found guilty of their murder in June 2012 and sentenced to 50 years to life.
However, their pre-parole sentence was reduced to 40 years by the Court of Appeal.