Additional charge for Collymore, alleged accomplices

BARBADOS-BORN business-man Omar Collymore and his three alleged accomplices implicated in the murder of his wife will now each have to answer to a count of conspiracy to murder after Justice Leighton Pusey granted the Crown permission to amend the indictment.

The four defendants, including the alleged contract killer, Michael Adams, Shaquilla Edwards and Dwayne Pink, were initially charged on an indictment with two counts of murder.

They were each charged with the brazen daylight contract killing of 32-year-old Simone Campbell-Collymore and taxi driver Winston ‘Corey’ Walters, 36, on January 2, 2018.

The two were killed when men rode up on motorbikes and sprayed them with bullets as they waited to be let inside Campbell-Collymore’s Forest Ridge apartment complex in Red Hills, St Andrew.

Collymore, who migrated to the United States (US) at five to live with his mother and stepfather, is accused of orchestrating his wife’s murder along with his co-defendants.

Yesterday, during the trial, the prosecution made submissions, which Justice Pusey accepted, for the third charge to be added to the indictment.

The Crown alleges that all four defendants between December 1, 2017 and January 2, 2018, conspired to have Campbell-Collymore and Walters killed.

RIGHt TO RECALL

While not strictly opposing the amendment, the defence indicated that it reserves the right to recall any witness who might be required to undergo further cross-examination concerning the new charge.

The trial has so far heard that Collymore, a US citizen, hired Adams to facilitate the murder of his wife and that Edwards and Pink allegedly played a role in surveilling the businesswoman’s movements before her death.

One of the triggermen in Campbell-Collymore’s murder previously testified that he was told that the hit was for $2 million.

Wade Blackwood, a confessed member of the Unruly Gang, who is currently serving two life sentences for the murders, had disclosed that he got the price tag from the other shooter, ‘Jim’, the now-deceased alleged leader of the Unruly Gang to which they all reportedly belonged.

Blackwood also testified that Adams was the contract killer and was the one who spoke with the man who had ordered the hit on the woman.

The trial, however, is currently hearing the evidence about the phone and cell site data from a forensic data analyst, a deputy superintendent of police attached to the Constabulary Force’s Communication, Forensics and Cybercrime Division, who examined the phone and cell site data, which he received from the island’s two main service providers.

COMMUNICATION

Phone data evidence showed that there was continuous communication between Collymore and the alleged contract killer in the days leading up to his wife’s murder.

The data also showed a pattern where Collymore would often call his wife, Simone Campbell-Collymore, before calling or attempting to make contact with the alleged contract killer, often in the space of a minute.

Specifically, phone data records showed that Collymore had called his wife for a minute, half-hour before she was murdered, and immediately after, made another minute call to the man whom he allegedly contracted to have her killed.

The phone data records further revealed that Adams and one of the shooters, Jim, exchanged several calls on the day of the shooting. Cell site data also placed Jim close to Simone’s apartment when the calls started.

The trial continues on Monday.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com