BELIZE CITY, Wed. Apr. 27, 2017–A jury selection process was completed yesterday morning, Tuesday, at the Supreme Court of Justice Adolph Lucas and two women and seven men were selected to hear the evidence in the trial of Evrett “Jack” Davis, 56, indicted for allegedly raping and wounding a 50-year-old woman.
The victim took the witness stand today and told the court that although the accused man did what he did, she did not wish to continue the case for personal reasons, and she would leave it up to God.
Rape victim told court she does not wish to continue the case “for personal reasons”,
and she would “leave it up to God.”
The woman, who was 48 at the time of the incident, told the court that she was acting on her own free will and was not forced by anyone to go to court to say what she had just said.
Crown counsel Sheringe Rodriguez, who yesterday afternoon had laid the foundation of the Crown’s indictment for the jury on the one count of rape and one count of wounding which Davis was facing, told the court that in light of the complainant’s decision, she would discontinue the case.
Justice Lucas then instructed the jury to return a formal not guilty verdict, bringing an end to the Crown’s case against Davis.
The incident that led to police charging Davis with rape and wounding, occurred on March 4, 2015.
In laying down the foundation of her case yesterday when she addressed the jury, Crown counsel Rodriguez told them that apart from being raped, the complainant was beaten, punched, kicked, and lashed with a machete, and this ordeal lasted from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 a.m. Rodriguez told the jury that she would call 9 witnesses to testify.
“The complainant was held captive and had to take the first opportunity she could take for help. She had to take the same machete she was lashed with and break a window and cry out for help. That was how police rescued her,” Rodriguez told the court.
Rodriguez then called her first witness, Detective Constable Wilbert Thompson, stationed at the police’s Eastern Division at the time of the incident.
Thompson testified that on March 4, 2015 at approximately 7:30 a.m., based on information received, he left the Eastern Division Police Station along with Woman Corporal Sadia Henry and they went to a yellow two-story house on Woods Street.
Thompson told the court that when he got there, he saw two uniformed police officers at the door. “And when I approached them, they gave me certain information,” he related.
Thompson continued, testifying that he heard the voice of a female coming from inside the house. “I identified myself as a police officer and asked for the door be opened; however, that was fruitless. I heard the person crying for help. She was saying, ‘help, help!’ Then I used excessive force and I stamped the door open.”
Thompson said that when he entered the house he saw blood on the floor of the living room. The woman who had cried out for help was locked up in a room and Thompson asked her to open the door and she did.
Thomson testified that the woman had blood on her face, hands and legs and was naked. He told her that she would get medical attention.
Davis was lying on the floor and was clad only in boxer shorts, Thompson said in his testimony. He described how he ordered Davis to stand up and handcuffed him, and that Woman Corporal Henry had entered the house and she was speaking to Davis.
Thompson said he heard when Davis told Corporal Henry, “I never rape she. She da wan whore; I pay she $20 to have sex.” “I heard when Corporal Henry cautioned Mr. Davis,” Thompson testified.
“I heard Corporal Henry tell Mr. Davis that he was being arrested for the crime of rape,” Thompson told the court.
He described how scenes of crime technicians arrived and began processing the scene, taking blood swabs from off the bed and floor and photographing the scene.
Thompson said he observed that a wooden louver was broken and he also observed that Davis, who at the time wore a dreadlocks hairstyle, had a cut on the left side of his forehead and the left cheek.
Both Davis and the woman were taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital for treatment, Thompson testified.