St Thomas farmers freed of murder

Two St Thomas farmers who were charged with the murder of 52-year-old Eric Melbourne of Willowsfield district, near Golden Grove in the parish have been freed.

Clovis Christie, 27 and Keron Reid, 35, both of Willowsfield district, were yesterday freed in the St Thomas Parish Court after the judge upheld submissions from attorney-at-law Hensley Williams at the committal proceedings that there was a lack of identification in the case.

The parish judge ordered that the case should be sent to the coroner’s court.

Melbourne, a farmer, was shot dead in an area without light in Willowsfield district on the night of November 21, 2019.

A policeman gave a statement that when he went to the hospital on the night of the shooting, Melbourne gave alias names of the men who shot him.

Melbourne died shortly after.

Williams, in making a no-case submission, said the policeman who took the statement did not know Melbourne before the incident and that he did not attend the post mortem to ensure that the deceased was the person who gave the statement at the hospital.

He further said the policeman could not establish that the person he spoke to at the hospital was the person who died.

Williams also submitted that the aliases given in the statement did not relate to Christie and Reid as they were not known by those names and had never answered to them.

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