‘Beachy Stout’ for court next February for first-wife murder
Published:Wednesday | October 16, 2024 | 12:10 AM
Convicted killer Everton ‘Beachy Stout’ McDonald is to return to the Home Circuit Court on February 5 of next year for a plea and case management hearing in connection with the alleged murder of his first wife.
The 70 year-old businessman is charged with the May 2, 2002 murder of his first wife, Merlene ‘Petal’ McDonald.
Merlene was shot dead outside her home in Boundbrook, Portland.
It is alleged that McDonald paid a police detective to kill his wife after their marriage crumbled and she left the matrimonial home.
A plea and case management which was initially scheduled for Monday was postponed to next year.
McDonald was, on September 24, sentenced to life in prison in relation to the murder of his second wife, Tonia, and ordered to serve 28 years and 11 months before being eligible for parole.
He was also sentenced to four years and six months’ imprisonment for conspiracy.
LIFE SENTENCE
His co-conspirator and the man who carried out the actual killing, 33-year-old tiler Oscar Barnes, was similarly sentenced to life in prison and ordered to serve 28 years and 11 months in prison before being considered for parole.
The 32 year-old woman’s partially burnt body was found on a deserted road in Sherwood Forest in Portland in July 2020.
Tonia had been stabbed nine times and her throat was also slashed. The car with her injured body was also set ablaze.
A contract killer, Denvalyn Minott, who is serving 19 years in prison for his role in her murder, had testified that ‘Beachy Stout’ hired him to kill his wife for $3 million, but that he passed on the work to Barnes.
Minott testified that he and Barnes made about four unsuccessful trips to Tonia’s house to kill her before he lured her to the area where she was murdered, under the pretence that he had secured two guns that she was seeking to purchase.
The court heard that Tonia wanted to purchase a gun to avenge her father’s death and that her husband introduced her to Minott for his assistance.
The court was also told by Minott that Beachy Stout had instructed him to kill the victim by inflicting multiple stabs and having her head decapitated, while warning that no gun was to be used.
Attorney-at-law John Jacobs is representing the defendant.