Cop testifies contract killer revealed Collymore wanted him to take full blame

The alleged contract killer in the murder of businesswoman Simone Campbell-Collymore had reportedly told police that her husband, Omar Collymore, was responsible for organising her murder but wanted him to take the fall.

“A him set up him wife and now him waa mi go dung fi it and a nuh mi alone involved,” 33-year-old defendant Michael Adams is alleged to have said.

A detective sergeant, who was the subofficer in charge at the Kingston Central Police Station in 2018, testified yesterday that the defendant, Adams, made the revelation during an interview at Denham Town Police Station on January 30.

“Right now mi naa wul nothing ‘cause mi have mi family fi live fa,” the witness recalled being told by Adams before he made reference to Collymore after he was cautioned and informed of his rights to remain silent.

According to the police witness, Adams was again cautioned and told that he needed to have his attorney present if he was making any incriminatory statement.

However, Adams, the witness said, responded saying, “Mi nuh need nuh lawyer. Mi a guh talk to yuh one and one and tell you wey gwaan. Naa mek mi family de suffer fi dis.”

The officer said Adams later gave him the name of his lawyer before he ended his testimony.

Adams is one of three men charged with Collymore for the January 2, 2018 murder of the 32-year-old entrepreneur and taxi driver Winston ‘Corey’ Walters, 36.

VEHICLE SPRAYED WITH BULLETS

Walters had transported the mother of two home and was waiting outside her Forest Ridge apartment complex to be let inside when men rode up on bikes and sprayed the car with bullet from both sides through the front windows.

Dwayne Pink and Shaquilla Edwards are also charged for the double murder.

Meanwhile, Adams’ lawyer, Sanjay Smith, in his cross-examination of the detective sergeant, suggested that his client never made those utterances, but the witness maintained that he did.

Smith further suggested that the officer did not have any pen and paper to record any information at the time of the interview but the witness insisted that he had them in his possession.

The witness also rejected a suggestion that the only information that Adams provided was the name of his lawyer.

Earlier in the trial, one of the shooters, Wade Blackwood, testified that Adams was the contract killer and was the one who would speak directly with the man who had ordered the hit.

The confessed member of the Brook Valley Unruly Gang had also told the court that Adams was present with others when the gang leader told him that he would have to carry out the woman’s murder as payment for a gun that the police had seized from his brother.

GIVEN A FIREARM

Adams was also reportedly present, he said, when he was given a Glock firearm to carry out the hit.

Blackwood later testified that he found out that Collymore was the man who had ordered the hit after Adams pointed him out when they were in a holding area at the Supreme Court.

He also claimed that Collymore had approached him and told him to tell the court that it was his wife who had ordered a hit on him, but it backfired, resulting in her death.

“Him tell mi say when we go court, mi must tell the judge or the court say a him wife pay mi fi kill him and it turn the next way,” Blackwood recalled.

Asked by the prosecutor what he meant, he had answered: “That him wife pay mi fi kill him and the deal never went right and mi turn around her and kill her.”

Blackwood, who had pleaded guilty to the murders in 2021, is currently serving two life sentences and will be eligible for parole after 20 years.

He was initially ordered to serve 35 years but 15 years was shaved off his pre-parole sentence after he agreed to give evidence for the prosecution. The trial will continue today.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com