McLEAN MURDER TRIAL: Defence blasts police for biased probe

The lawyer acting on behalf of accused killer Michael McLean today blasted the police for what he described as a biased investigation into the slaying of six members of a St Thomas family, including four children.

Attorney-at-law Carlton Colman made the assertion before the seven-member jury in McLean's murder trial in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.

Describing the St Thomas businessman as the fall guy, Colman said the police did not investigate to find the truth.

Instead, he says investigators did everything to identify his client as the person responsible for the killings.

"They conducted a skewed investigation to try to mek him [McLean] look bad," Colman insisted.

The attorney said the police had a burden to investigate for the truth, but abandoned that burden.

He urged the jury of four women and three men no to be forced into believing that McLean is guilty.

"Don't buss you brain. If you don't feel that way (that McLean is guilty, don't feel guilty," Colman urged the jury.

Lead prosecutor Paula Llewellyn is to respond later.

McLean is on trial for killing his former girlfriend Terry-Ann Mohammed, her niece, Patrice Martin-McCool and their children, Lloyd McCool, Jihad McCool, Sean Chin and Jesse O'Gilvie in St Thomas in February 2006.

Mohammed's badly burnt body was found in bushes in Needham Pen while the bodies of four of the remaining victims were found in bushes near Prospect Beach.

The decomposing body of the other victim, six-year-old Jihad McCool, was found in a shallow grave in St Mary one week later.