Mother of slain Portland businesswoman denies that her daughter wanted to buy gun

The mother of slain businesswoman Tonia McDonald says there is no truth that her daughter wanted to buy a gun to avenge her father's murder as she was the coward in the family.

“She was the weakest one in the family. She would not associate herself with no gun. That girl was a coward,” Sonia Davis Hamilton testified yesterday under cross-examination during the trial of her son-in-law Everton 'Beachy Stout' McDonald and his co-defendant Oscar Barnes in the Home Circuit Court.

The duo were both charged with Tonia's murder in July 2020, after she was found in Sherwood Forest, Portland, with her throat slashed and several stab wounds.

Earlier during the trial, contract killer Denvalyn Minott, who said that Beachy Stout had contracted him to kill Tonia, also told the court that he was asked by him to help Tonia purchase a gun so that she could have her father's killer murdered.

But, he testified that Beachy Stout had confided in him that he was responsible for murdering Tonia's father.

The court also heard that the gun purchase mission was a sham to get Minott close to Tonia to execute her.

Minott, however, claimed that he could not carry out the deed and hired Barnes.

Yesterday during cross-examination, one of Beachy Stout's lawyers, Jean-Paul Hamilton, asked Davis Hamilton if she was aware that her daughter was involved in the purchasing of a gun and that her reason for going to Sherwood Forest on the night she was killed was to buy a firearm.

She was also asked whether she knew that Tonia wanted to contract men to kill the person who she believed had murdered her father.

“I bet she didn't tell you those things?" the lawyer said to the mother who earlier told the court that she and her daughter had a very close relationship.

But, Davis Hamilton, while denying knowledge of those things, said, “I know that she is not that type of person.”

The widow, who broke down in tears while speaking about both her deceased daughter and husband, testified that her spouse was shot and killed in November 2018.

She said he was gunned down while driving home from his business place and that she was in the car and was also injured.

The trial will continue today with another witness.

- Tanesha Mundle

Follow The Gleaner on X, formerly Twitter, and Instagram @JamaicaGleaner and on Facebook @GleanerJamaica. Send us a message on WhatsApp at 1-876-499-0169 or email us at onlinefeedback@gleanerjm.com or editors@gleanerjm.com.