Portmore man guilty of double murder
Published:Wednesday | January 26, 2011 | 12:00 AM
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
A jury has convicted 45-year-old businessman David Russell, of West Bay in Portmore, St Catherine, of the murder of 25-year-old assistant racehorse trainer Emelio Richards and labourer Omar Watson, both of Portmore addresses.
Senior Puisne Judge Gloria Smith has put off sentencing until March 24 in the Home Circuit Court. The jury deliberated for four and a half hours before handing down the verdict.
The bodies, with bullet wounds to the heads, were found in a cane field off the Dunbeholden main road, St Catherine, on May 28, 2006.
The Crown, represented by prosecutors Lisa Palmer-Hamilton and Andrea Martin-Swaby, led evidence at the three-week trial that on the afternoon of May 28, 2006, Emilio Richards, Watson and Andy Richards, Emelio's uncle, went to Russell's home at West Bay to sell him cocaine.
After the cocaine was handed over, the men's hands were tied, their faces masked with duct tape and they were placed in the motor car in which they had travelled.
The men were taken to a cane field and shot in the head.
Andy Richards survived and crawled on to the Dunbeholden main road where he was assisted by passers-by. The police were summoned and Andy was taken to hospital.
Witness killed
He gave a statement to the police but he was fatally shot a day before the preliminary inquiry was to be held into the double murder. His statement was tendered in evidence and read to the jury.
A policeman also testified of seeing Russell driving a right-hand-drive brown Honda Civic motor car along the Dunbeholden main road shortly before the shooting took place.
Russell, who was represented by defence lawyers Tom Tavares-Finson and Christian Tavares-Finson, said in his defence that he was innocent of the charges. He said he had a brown Honda Civic motor car but it was a left-hand drive. He called witnesses to support his statement in relation to the type of car.
He said in an interview with the police, when he was taken into custody, that he was at a football match at Union Gardens, Spanish Town Road, at the time of the incident.