Beachy Stout to know bail fate April 30

Portland businessman Everton ‘Beachy Stout’ McDonald, who is accused of plotting the murders of his two wives in separate incidents, is to know on April 30 whether he will be granted bail.

The fate of his co-accused, Oscar Barnes, in the murder of his second wife will also be decided on that date in the Home Circuit Court.

In the first matter, a cold case, 67-year-old McDonald is charged in connection with the killing of Merlene McDonald, who was shot dead outside her home in Boundbrook, Portland, in May 2009.

It is alleged that he had paid a police detective to kill his wife after their marriage crumbled and she left the matrimonial home.

In the other case involving his second wife, Tonia McDonald, he is charged along with Barnes in connection with the July 20, 2020, murder.

Tonia’s partially burnt body was found with the throat slashed beside her burnt car along the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland last July.

Another man, Denvalyn Minott, said to be the contract killer, was also arrested and charged but pleaded guilty in the Home Circuit Court last September and was sentenced to 19 years in prison.

The contract killer, in a witness statement, claimed that he was offered $3 million by the Portland businessman to end his wife’s life.

But Minott revealed in the statement that he hired another man to carry out the crime and that he watched as the man repeatedly stabbed the 32-year-old businesswoman.

During Tuesday’s bail hearing before Justice Vinette Graham Allen, McDonald’s lead attorney, Bert Samuels, argued that his client had been diagnosed with clinical depression.

However, Samuels told the court that Tonia had an issue of “entanglement” and was ending a relationship with a jealous lover around the time of her death.

Samuels added that on the night she was killed, she had gone to Sherwood Forest to purchase a gun to avenge her father’s death and had kept it a secret from her husband. According to the attorney, his client did not have a motive to kill his wife.

In the case of the first wife, the lawyer further submitted that the allegations against his client were like “legal fiction” that had been resurrected after 12 years.

The prosecution, however, objected to the application, citing grounds such as the seriousness of the allegations.

Following the application, McDonald and his co-accused were remanded.

Attorney-at-law Matthew Hyatt is also representing McDonald.

tanesha.mundle@gleanerjm.com