Witness admits failure in identifying alleged shooter in Collymore trial
Published:Wednesday | February 28, 2024 | 12:10 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
A security guard, who identified one of the shooters in the murder of businesswoman Simone Campbell-Collymore, on Tuesday admitted that he was mistaken.
The witness, after seeing still images from a recording of the shooting, indicated that the man in question only resembled the shooter.
According to him, he was never shown still images of the recording before.
The guard, who had been on duty at the Forest Ridge apartment complex in Red Hills, St Andrew, the night before the shooting, had named co-defendant Dwayne Pink, as one of the shooters who he saw in the recording of the incident.
The woman’s husband, Omar Collymore; Pink; Michael Adams; and Shaquile Edwards are currently on trial for the double murder.
The 32-year-old businesswoman and her taxi driver, 36-year-old Winston Walters, were killed outside her gate on January 2, when two men sprayed the vehicle with bullets close to 4 p.m.
The witness had previously testified during the trial in the Home Circuit Court that about 3 a.m. on January 2, 2018, he was patrolling the complex when he saw a man sleeping in a car on the compound, which raised his suspicion.
He testified that he later saw the man leaving the car and knocking on the apartment door of the now-deceased woman’s husband, before entering the premises.
According to the witness, after the woman’s murder, he recognised one of the shooters as being the same man whom he had seen on the compound in the car.
He described the man as having tattoos on his lower hands and sporting locs, as well as having a bleached appearance.
He also remembered that the shooter was wearing the same clothes that he had seen the man in the car wearing earlier.
During his testimony when asked if he saw the man in court, he had pointed out Pink, who also sports locs.
But during his evidence on Tuesday, after being shown the video as well as still images, said he did not recognise the man whom he had earlier identified in an identification parade.
WITNESS ACCOUNTS
The witness also testified that when he saw the man in the car, he later checked his log book and saw that the car had visited the premises before to see Collymore.
However, during cross-examination, Collymore’s lawyer, Dian Jobson, questioned him about the lack of entry for the car in which he had supposedly seen Pink.
However, the witness did not answer the question as the prosecutor had objected.
Jobson then highlighted that the only entry she had seen in the book with respect to that car was one on January 1, which arrived at 1:20 p.m. and left at 3:44 p.m.
Quizzed further about the missing entry for the car in question, the witness indicated that there were only two, one on December 31, and another on New Year’s Day.
Under further cross-examination, the guard denied a suggestion that the car was never seen on the compound in the parking lot that day.
However, while being grilled by Pink’s lawyer Ernest Davis about the said missing entry, he explained that it was a result of negligence.
He explained that because of familiarity, some security guards sometimes failed to log entries and exits.
The trial continues today.