Mark Vernon, 23, a stevedore of Belize City, was found not guilty by a jury of 9 women before Justice Herbert Lord today on a charge of manslaughter by negligence.
Vernon, defended by attorney Richard “Dickie” Bradley, was accused of negligence in the shooting death of his cousin, David Burgess, 17, who died two days after being shot once in the back of the head on August 9, 2008, while riding in a motor vehicle on Caesar Ridge Road near its junction with Fabers Road, the Wilton Cumberbatch Sports Field and the Yabra Police Station and Community Policing Center.
The jury retired this afternoon at 12:09 and returned at 4:05 , just shy of four hours later.
Dr. Mario Estradabran, who conducted the autopsy on Burgess’ body on August 12, certified cause of death as acute pulmonary edema due to multiple organ failure due to head injury from a gunshot wound.
Dr. Estradabran testified that in his examination of Burgess’ body he found two orifices, or holes: one at the back of the head, about 2 inches above the right ear, and another in the left front forehead, consistent with an exit wound.
In his opinion, the wounds were caused by a single shot fired from a handgun between .38 and 9mm caliber, at close range – that is, no less than 28 inches from the target. The trajectory of the wound was right to left, back to front, slightly up then down, causing disruption of the brain tissue, cranial and other facial bones before exit.
Asked where a shooter would have been positioned to cause such a wound, Dr. Estradabran said he would have to have been on the right side of the victim, behind him.
The bulk of the prosecution’s case, argued by Crown Counsel Sheiniza Smith, rests on two statements given to police by the late Alexander “Break Dance” McDonald, 46, a plumber/mechanic/laborer, and Giovanni Chi, 33, a musician, both residents of the Port Loyola area and familiar with both the accused and the deceased. McDonald was killed last December and Chi was murdered in August of this year.
However, both their statements to police were admitted into evidence.
According to their statements, McDonald, Chi and other men were standing together in front of a snack shop located on the Cumberbatch Field, facing Caesar Ridge Road, early in the afternoon of August 9. They saw a grey car pass by, apparently being driven by Burgess, who Chi knew only by his first name and as “Bust Throat” (McDonald knew him by his full name, David Burgess), and carrying Vernon, known to both men as “Pele,” and other unidentified men.
Each said they heard a loud bang coming from the area near the police station and saw the vehicle that had just passed swerve to the right, onto the sidewalk, then come off, back onto the road, and proceed up Queen Charlotte Street and to the Yabra Bridge.
McDonald said he got a bicycle from the late Andre Trapp, one of the men with them at the time, and followed the vehicle, but could not catch up to it.
Trapp then received a phone call, apparently concerning Burgess, and he, Chi, McDonald and one Kevin Cassanova (also deceased) then left in a grey Chevrolet Suburban for the area of Fabers Road Extension and Krooman Road, to see Burgess’ condition.
The statements of both deceased, as read in court, say that after having some initial trouble finding the body, they encountered Vernon and one Alexander Underwood coming from an alley near the junction of Fabers and Krooman Roads.
According to McDonald, when he asked Vernon, whom he knew only by the nickname “Pele,” where Burgess was and what had happened to him, Vernon replied, “Ah neva mean it, it was an accident,” and then he fainted.
Underwood, McDonald told police, then pointed him to the vehicle, which was a grey 4-door Chevrolet Cavalier parked about 50 yards away. On checking the vehicle, he saw Burgess lying in a slouched position on the rear passenger seat, blood coming from his head and blood stains and brain tissue on the seat, but still alive and breathing.
Burgess was taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital in the Cavalier and McDonald, Chi, Vernon, Trapp, Underwood and the others returned to the Yabra area, where according to McDonald, Vernon again said to him that he “was sorry” and “didn’t mean it,” and he, McDonald, told him to give a statement to police.
McDonald and Chi then went to the hospital to find Burgess, who was in the Accident and Emergency Unit, and they later separately gave statements to police.
Based on the information they had received, police picked up Vernon, who was later charged with manslaughter by negligence on the advice of Director of Public Prosecutions Cheryl-Lynn Vidal (Branker-Taitt, as she was then).
The statements given by McDonald and Chi are not sworn evidence, as both men died before trial and therefore did not have an opportunity to testify in court and be cross-examined. It was also noted that no gun was ever recovered in the case; and no report of the samples taken by scenes of crime technician Audrey Cleland of blood and brain tissue specimen from the vehicle and a black peak cap found in the vehicle and sent to the Forensic Service in Ladyville were presented in court, nor were the results provided of swabs taken of Vernon’s hands for gunpowder residue.
No statements from police officers working at the station at the time of the incident contained any indications that they heard the sound McDonald and Chi said they heard, and there was no identification parade of Vernon.
The accused gave an unsworn statement from the dock, claiming that he was at the Cumberbatch Field when he heard someone speaking about Burgess being hurt and decided along with his friends (unidentified) to go look for him. They went in separate vehicles, he said, and when they got to Krooman Road and he saw the condition of Burgess, he “passed away” and woke up at his mother’s house.
He said he later told his friends that what had happened to Burgess was “no accident,” and denied in front of the jury that he had anything to do with the “murder” of his cousin.