‘Blood was on his hands’
Witness says defendant showed him video of Shineka Gray being stabbed
Published:Tuesday | November 28, 2023 | 12:11 AMChristopher Thomas/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
“HE ASKED for water to wash off his hands ... . Blood was on his hands.”
That was the chilling testimony a civilian witness gave to the St James Circuit Court on Monday regarding Gregory Roberts, who is on trial for the 2017 murder of 15-year-old Green Pond High student Shineka Gray.
Roberts and another man, Mario Morrison, were arrested and charged with Gray’s murder after the schoolgirl’s body was found with stab wounds in bushes in Irwin, St James, on February 1, 2017.
Morrison pleaded guilty in September 2022 and was sentenced a month later to life imprisonment, leaving Roberts as the sole remaining defendant.
During what was the second day of Roberts’ trial, the witness told presiding High Court Justice Bertram Morrison that on January 29, 2017, Roberts came to him wearing a bloodied merino and then showed him a video of Gray being stabbed.
“He (Roberts) was standing there with blood splashed on his merino, and he showed me something on his phone. I saw him and a little girl standing on the phone screen, and what I saw was him with a big kitchen knife ‘jooking’ the girl, and same time the girl’s blood a splash,” the witness outlined.
“It was like she was sitting on her bottom, and it was like she did a groan, she did a plead, and him was ‘jooking’ the lower part of her body,” the witness added. “I never felt good about it because it was not a good look.”
The witness also revealed that the following day, January 30, 2017, he saw a missing person’s picture depicting the same girl in the video Roberts had reportedly shown him.
“I went to work and I saw a picture about a missing girl. One of my friends sent a picture on Facebook, and when I saw the picture, it was the same girl Gregory showed me on the phone, and it was a full picture of her in a full dress, tiger-coloured,” the witness explained as Roberts looked on from the prisoner’s dock.
Prior to this witness’ evidence-in-chief, Gray’s mother testified on Monday that a picture of her daughter wearing a tiger-print dress had been submitted for Gray’s missing-person report only two days before the teenager’s body was found.
“On February 1, 2017, I got a call and I went to Irwin in St James, and I spoke to a police officer and the officer showed me a picture of Shineka in a tiger-print dress, the same picture in the missing-person report. I don’t know anything after that, I woke up in the hospital,” the mother testified while giving her evidence-in-chief by video link as she paused to wipe her eyes.
“On January 29, I was at my house, and I left Shineka and my other daughter with my family members and went to work at about 7:30 in the morning. At 6:30 p.m., I was at the KFC on Howard Cooke Boulevard in St James, and I saw Shineka and her friends at the KFC. I spoke to Shineka and I left and went home, because she was eating and it was 6:30,” the mother explained, in outlining the last time she saw her daughter alive.
The trial continues today.
Prior to Monday’s hearing, Gray’s father and aunt gave evidence for the prosecution, which is expected to call 18 witnesses in the case.