Police witness says she transcribed secret recordings over 3 visits to witness in lockup

Twenty-five transcripts of the secretly recorded conversations between contract killer Denvalyn ‘Bubbla’ Minott and Portland business Everton ‘Beachy Stout’ McDonald were yesterday tendered into evidence.

The documents were tendered into evidence following the testimony of a police sergeant who transcribed the conversations.

The 68-year-old businessman, accused of orchestrating the August 2020 murder of his wife Tonia, is being tried in the Home Circuit Court along with Oscar Barnes, 33, St Mary, tiler.

Minott, the murder-convict-turned-prosecution witness, who is currently serving a 19-year prison sentence for his role in the murder, previously testified that McDonald contracted him to kill Tonia for $3 million but that he subcontracted the hit to Barnes.

The Portland fisherman had also told the court that he gave the police about 120 secretly recorded conversations which he had captured on his phone. Minott said he gave the police the phone with the recordings when they raided his home on August 5, 2020.

The phone in question was tendered into evidence earlier in the trial.

The police witness, during her evidence-in-chief testimony, told the court that she started preparing the transcripts after visiting Minott while he was in police lockup and listening to three of the recordings.

The court heard that the sergeant made three visits and that she completed the transcripts between May 11 and September last year.

According to her, she visited on September 7 and 15 and during those visits read over the transcripts to Minott.

She was however taken to task by one of McDonald’s lawyers, Christopher Townsend, for not capturing in her statement the dates she started preparing the transcript and the two dates in September she visited Minott.

AN OVERSIGHT

Asked why she had left out that bit of information about the dates from her statement, the witness insisted that it was an oversight.

The witness, who had earlier testified that Minott had not signed the transcripts, when asked if she was certain that it was Minott with whom she had read over the documents, said she was certain as she was introduced to him in 2020.

Townsend also asked the witness why the last two dates were not mentioned in the statement she gave to the police.

Later in the proceedings, Barnes’ lawyer, Vincent Wellesley, grilled the witness about the police’s reason for not capturing Barnes’ arrest.

The trial last week saw a one minute and 42 second-long recording of a video of the police on the day Minott pointed out Barnes while he was sitting on a corner in St Mary.

The 20-year police veteran, who is a trained videographer, was then asked to explain why she did not record the arrest.

Initially, she told the court that she had parked too far away from where Barnes was pointed out and was unable to see.

However, she later changed her answer after Wellesley asked her if she had been left behind to guard Minott and she conceded that that was the real reason.

Asked if it was important, she agreed that it was but said, “I could not leave the vehicle. I was the only officer in the vehicle with Minott.”

She added that it was more important to secure the witness.

She had told the court that she was part of a police team who had travelled with Minott to look at locations where he met with Barnes and that the chief investigator and another officer had left her in the car for about 30 minutes and went to arrest Barnes.

Wellesley also questioned the witness about a description of Barnes that she had written in her statement, in which she described him as being dark, slim and five feet seven inches.

Barnes’ description has been a bone of contention for his defence team who has argued that the police were never given a description of him or his name when they were told about the person by Minott.

Asked how she came by the description, the sergeant said she was told by the chief investigator.

“As an experienced police officer, do you agree that you should not have written a description because you did not see Barnes when he was arrested?”

The officer however maintained that she was given the description and refused to give a direct answer to the question, prompting Wellesley to move on.

The trial will resume on Thursday.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com