Omar Collymore found guilty of orchestrating wife's murder

Barbados-born United States businessman Omar Collymore was today found guilty of orchestrating the January 2018 murder of his wife, Simone Campbell-Collymore, and taxi driver Winston Walters.

Contract killer, Michael Adams, and accomplice Dwayne Pink were also found guilty of facilitating the murder.

Shaquilla Edwards was, however, found not guilty on two counts of murder but guilty of conspiracy to murder.

The seven-member jury found the men guilty of two counts of murder and murder conspiracy after deliberating for nearly two and a half hours.

The victims were killed when men rode up on motorbikes and sprayed them with bullets as they waited to be let inside Campbell-Collymore's Forest Ridge apartment complex in Red Hills, St Andrew.

The mother of two was shot 19 times while the taxi driver was shot five times

The trial of the four men heard that Collymore hired Adams to facilitate the murder of his wife and that Edwards and Pink allegedly played a role in surveilling the businesswoman's movements before her death.

One of the triggermen in Campbell-Collymore's murder previously testified that he was told that the hit was for $2 million.

Wade Blackwood, a confessed member of the Unruly Gang, who is currently serving two life sentences for the murders, had disclosed that he got the price tag from the other shooter, 'Jim', the now-deceased alleged leader of the Unruly Gang, to which they all reportedly belonged.

Blackwood also testified that Adams was the contract killer and was the one who spoke with the man who had ordered the hit on the woman.

Among the evidence presented was that Collymore was the sole beneficiary on his wife's $21-million life insurance policy and was allotted 70 per cent of her second life insurance policy worth $80 million.

Campbell-Collymore had finalised an $80-million life insurance policy less than three months before she was murdered to add to the $21-million policy.

Collymore also took out a life insurance policy for $80 million, with his wife and children as beneficiaries.

Phone data evidence also showed that there was continuous communication between Collymore and the contract killer on the days leading up to his wife's murder, and in one of the text messages sent two days before her death, he was urging the person “to hurry up” and to “do it this morning.”

The data also showed a pattern where Collymore would often call his wife before calling or attempting to make contact with the contract killer, often within the space of a minute.

Specifically, phone data records showed that Collymore had called his wife for a minute, half an hour before she was murdered, and immediately after, he made another minute-long call to the man whom he contracted to have her killed.

The phone data records further revealed that Adams and one of the shooters, Jim, exchanged several calls on the day of the shooting.

Cell site data also placed Jim close to the woman's apartment when the calls started.

However, Collymore and Adams, in their defence, said that there was no conspiracy and that their frequent communication was about business, specifically about phones that Adams were given to sell and the return of some which were defective.

Collymore also maintained that he loved his wife dearly and would never kill her.

Additionally, he said he was not aware of the details of her $80 million life insurance policy and would not have sanctioned her leaving him 70 percent of the benefit.

Pink also maintained his innocence and that he did not take part in the murder plot while Edwards said that he was initially involved but did not know the full details and eventually pulled out before the murder was committed.

- Tanesha Mundle

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