After 4 ¼ hours of waiting, Leonard “Ghost” Myers, 26, of Iguana Street Extension, emerged smiling from the courtroom of Justice Adolph Lucas at 4:30 this evening.
He had just been acquitted of the shooting death of Rodney Conorquie, 14, on December 6, 2006, on the corner of Banak Street and Magazine Road, and the attempted murder and aggravated assault of two special constables, Gerald Smith and John Myvette, and eyewitness Raheem Magan.
Having been announced as the first witness, Magan failed to show up for the trial at its start, and hence the attempted murder count in his case had no evidence to support it, according to Justice Lucas.
The trial began on April 30 with the testimonies of SPC Smith and SPC Myvette, who came upon the scene at 5:45 that Wednesday evening on Cemetery Road.
Gunshots had just sounded around the corner on Magazine and Banak, where young Conorquie lay in a pool of his own blood, telling patrolling Sergeant Henry Jemmott, who had been near Matron Roberts Health Center, through tears and pain, that he had just been shot, and that his attacker had run toward Cemetery Road.
He was taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial hospital, where he died later that night, as testified to by his father Hector, who identified his son’s body the next day at the post-mortem. He had died from excessive bleeding due to several gunshot wounds in the back and chest, as well as the right arm and right thigh.
According to Smith, he, Myvette and one Corporal Robinson were returning at about the same time from Hattieville when they happened upon the scene. After parking, Smith, Myvette and Robinson noticed a man running through an open lot next to the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah Witnesses, emerging onto Cemetery Road.
Smith called to him to stop, but instead, the man took out his handgun, pointed it at the officers and began firing as he ran into the alley. The men chased and Smith returned fire.
The confrontation ended with the suspect, allegedly Myers, giving himself up to police, claiming he had been shot.
All three officers said they knew Myers personally and identified him by name in court several times in the course of their testimony as having participated in December 6’s events.
But according to defense counsels Dickie Bradley and Ashanti Martin, Myers was not present on Magazine Road at the time of the shooting.
Myers, speaking from the dock in his own defense, claimed he had been with friends drinking at his cousin Cindy Smart’s home on Fuller’s Alley when the shots sounded. They immediately scattered and Myers scaled a fence adjoining an open lot in Morter’s Alley, where he realized he had been shot in the ankle and cried out for assistance. He denied shooting either Conorquie or the officers.
According to Justice Lucas, the officers’ identifications were not concrete enough to be admitted as evidence, as the look they had at the fleeing suspect was “fleeting.”
And that may have swung the tide, as by 4:23 this evening, the eleven women and one man returned and the foreman announced five times that Myers had been found “not guilty.”
Jubilant family members told us outside the courtroom that they had fully expected the verdict. Myers agreed, but said nothing further when we spoke with him, perhaps too busy reveling in his escape. He had told 7News in 2006 that a hit was out on him relating to drugs, and that he was running from two individuals who wanted him dead.