Campbell-Collymore’s cabbie had premonition prior to double murder

The taxi driver who was killed in the shooting attack on Simone Campbell-Collymore had expressed reservations about working that day, but he brushed aside a sense of foreboding because he had to provide for his children.

Winston Walters was shot dead outside the businesswoman’s Forest Ridge apartment complex in Red Hills, St Andrew, on January 2, 2018, when two men sprayed his taxi with bullets.

He was shot five times, including a bullet to his head, while Campbell-Collymore was shot 19 times.

Walters’ wife, who testified from overseas via video link on Friday in the Home Circuit Court, tearfully recounted the day of the incident.

“On that day, he said he didn’t feel the vibes to go to work, but he had to go for his kids because they had to live,” she said as she burst into tears.

The teacher, who occasionally patted her chest periodically in distress as tears flowed throughout her testimony, said her husband had four sons, three of whom they shared.

WITNESS ACCOUNT

According to the witness, her husband usually leaves home by 6:30 a.m., but on that fateful day, he delayed a bit and ended up leaving the house between 8:30 and 9 a.m.

The court also heard that the couple had recently purchased the blue Toyota Axio, which was being used as a taxi, and that Walters had just signed up with a taxi company and has been working for about three months.

Asked if she had spoken to her husband after he left the house that day, the widow said he had opened an account to save the earnings from the taxi venture and that she was supposed to meet him after 2 p.m. at the bank to add her name to the account.

However, she told the court that she called him to reschedule for the following day as she had a terrible headache.

After 4 p.m. that day, she said that she sent him a message, but he did not respond.

“I waited a while after I sent another message and I called and called and called,” she said while sniffling and wiping her nose.

About 6:35 p.m., the witness said she received a phone call from one of her husband’s co-workers at the taxi company and was informed that he had been hospitalised.

Consequently, the witness said, she told her children to quickly get dressed as they had to go to the hospital, and she thought it was just an accident.

However, she said the same co-worker called her back and after speaking with her, she later went by her mother’s house.

On the following day, the witness went to the Constant Spring Police Station in St Andrew, where she saw the car with the windshield missing. On January 11, she identified her husband’s body during the autopsy.

Omar ‘Best’ Collymore, who is accused of plotting his wife’s murder, is being tried for the double murder, along with Michael Adams, Dewayne Pink, and Shaquille Edwards.

They are each being tried for two counts of murder and a count of conspiracy before Justice Leighton Pusey.

SENTENCES RUNNING CONCURRENTLY

One of Collymore’s co-accused, Wade Blackwood, who confessed to shooting Walters, was sentenced on March 11, 2021, to two life sentences on two counts of murder and eight and a half years for illegal possession of a firearm. The sentences are running concurrently and he will be eligible for parole after serving 35 years.

The slaying of the two victims was captured on closed-circuit television and appeared to be one of the factors that nudged Blackwood to plead guilty.

The video recordings and the quality of still images showed Blackwood approaching the front passenger side of the vehicle and firing into it, court documents revealed.

According to him, two men who he knew had threatened him into taking part in the woman’s murder after he declined.

“Memba seh you bredda [borrow] man tings an yuh nuh pay fi it yet. So wait til mi come back. A different ting,” he had quoted one of the men as saying to him in a phone call.

The trial will continue on Monday.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com