'Hostile' witness in MoBay gas station murder to be charged with creating public mischief
Published:Thursday | October 11, 2018 | 12:00 AM
Christopher Thomas, Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
Prosecutor Maxine Jackson has recommended that a crown witness in the murder trial of brothers O’Neil and O’Brian Walters be charged with creating public mischief.
The witness was immediately arrested after coming off the witness stand in the St James Circuit Court.
The Walters brothers are accused of participating in a daring daylight shooting at a St James gas station in 2016, which resulted in the murder of 22-year-old Kahni Erskine.
The brazen shooting was caught on video.
Earlier today, Jackson applied to high court judge Sharon George to treat the crown witness as hostile.
The application was made a day after the witness began to change his accounts of the shooting he gave to the police two years ago.
Today, despite the prosecutor pointing out that the signature of the witness was on the pages of statements taken from him, the witness denied several times that he had spoken to the police about the defendants following the shooting.
“Do you have an explanation why the police put these things in the statements you signed to? You don’t read the documents or make the officer read them to you?” the clearly frustrated Jackson asked the witness.
“No, the police write what they want to write,” the witness answered.
“Can you read, or is it that you can’t understand the writing (on the statements)?” Justice George interjected.
“I can’t read,” the witness admitted.
“Do you have a driver’s licence?” Jackson asked him.
“I buy my licence,” the witness answered, prompting laughter across the courtroom.
During cross-examination by defence attorney Christopher Townsend, the witness said that the evidence he had given up to that point was the truth, leading to Jackson making the application for him to be charged with creating public mischief.
The trial will continue on Tuesday, October 16.
One other civilian witness has already given evidence for the prosecution in the trial, which began on Tuesday, October 9.
The first witness testified that on the day of the shooting, he saw a man identified as O’Brian Walters exiting a motor vehicle at the gas station, following which shots were fired.
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