BELIZE CITY, Thurs. May 2, 2019– Tevin Andrewin, 26, charged with the murder of Myrick Gladden, 28, who was gunned down about 12:20 a.m. on June 24, 2012, was found guilty of the charge today by Madam Justice Marilyn Williams in a trial that was without a jury.
The chief witness for the Crown, Gladden’s common-law wife, Shainna Allen, testified that she and Gladden were walking on Administration Drive, aka “Complex” Street, when she heard three loud bangs that sounded like gunshots coming from behind her and she felt a burning sensation in her left calf which made her realize that she had been shot. She said she turned around and saw a man with a gun in his hand and she stood, frozen, on the spot. She said she saw Gladden lying on the pavement beside where she stood.
Allen said the gunman approached her and she ran and the gunman fired shots at her. She said she looked back and she saw the gunman stand over Gladden and fire shots at him. Gladden was wounded three times in his back, once in his right armpit, once in his liver and once in his chest. Allen said she ran until she reached the house of a friend and she hid under the verandah.
The police arrived at the scene and they took Allen and Gladden to the hospital. Before he died, Gladden told the police that it was Andrewin who shot him and that was admitted as evidence. Allen, in an identification parade, picked out the shooter as the person wearing the number 6, but she said the number was actually 7, and that she pointed to 6 because she felt intimidated by Andrewin’s mother.
After Crown Counsel Sheringe Rodriguez closed the case for the Crown, Andrewin’s attorney, Hector Guerra, made a submission that his client did not have a case to answer to because the identification evidence was poor. But Justice Williams did not uphold the submission. Andrewin gave a statement from the dock in which he denied that he committed the offence. A date has not been set for sentencing because a victim impact assessment statement has to go to the Community Rehabilitation Department and pleas for mitigation from character witnesses have not yet been heard. The trial began on February 25 and concluded on March 20.