BELIZE CITY, Wed. Dec. 11, 2019– At the end of his summary of the Crown’s evidence in the indictment of Valentine Baptist, 30, for the July 2016 murder of Devin Parham, 19, Supreme Court Justice Colin Williams declared: “Valentine Baptist, you are guilty of murder!”

The court has set February 13, 2020 as the sentencing date for Baptist.

The Crown’s evidence was led by Senior Crown Counsel Shanice Lovell, while Baptist was defended by attorney Simeon Sampson, S.C.

At the end of the prosecution’s case, Sampson made a no-case-to-answer submission, but Justice Williams, who heard the case sitting without a jury, ruled on the circumstantial evidence and the ballistic test results from the National Forensic and Science Service, which confirmed that the gun, a Glock 9mm, that was found in Baptist’s possession on the evening of the murder, was the same weapon that fired the bullets which killed Parham.

On the evening of Wednesday, July 6, 2016, around 4:00 p.m., Devin and Victor Parham, two cousins, were walking on Cemetery Road. The two were heading toward their home on Curassow Street.

When the two cousins reached in front of First Choice Pharmacy, a man in a green T-shirt who was riding a bicycle approached them. Victor Parham saw the man on the bicycle pull out a handgun and he ran, leaving his cousin behind. Victor only stopped running when he reached the junction of Curassow Street.

As he ran, Victor Parham heard a volley of shots and when he returned to look for his cousin, Devin Parham, he saw him stretched out on the street. He had been shot dead.

The man on the bicycle had disappeared from his sight; however, two policemen, Corporal Navarette and PC Miguel Martinez, who were going to the Raccoon Street Police Station, saw the man on the bicycle and began following him.

The man in the green T-shirt dismounted his bicycle and went into a yard on George Street.

The two officers closed in on him and PC Martinez saw the man in the green T-shirt throw a firearm over a 5-to 6-foot-high fence.

PC Martinez was able to apprehend the man with the help of officers from the Special Patrol Unit on patrol in the area.

PC Martinez, after retrieving the firearm in the presence of the man they had arrested, would later learn his name to be Valentine Orlando Baptist.

Baptist was arrested and charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm.

The gun that, according to police, had been in Baptist’s possession, was sent to the National Forensic and Science Service lab for testing.

While Baptist was being arrested for possession of an unlicensed firearm, crime scene technician Angela Wilshire was busy processing the crime scene where Devin Parham had been murdered. She collected seven 9mm expended shell casings from the murder scene.

In presenting her case, Crown Counsel Lovell relied on circumstantial evidence. There was no eyewitness to the shooting.

Valentine Baptist was interviewed by Sergeant Mark Humes the day after the murder and he denied his involvement, saying that he did not know the deceased, and neither did anyone send him to shoot Parham.

Baptist denied riding a bicycle anywhere near Cemetery Road on the day of the shooting.

Baptist told Humes that he ran from the police because he had an unlicensed firearm on him.

On the same day he interviewed Baptist, Sergeant Humes charged him with Parham’s murder.

In his summary, Justice Williams noted that when the police charged Baptist for the murder, they had no evidence. Baptist was charged on the basis of suspicion, Justice Williams said.

Justice Williams went on to note that most of the elements of murder had been proven by the Crown. These included the fact that Parham was dead, that his death was the result of unlawful harm, that the person who shot him had intended to kill him, and that the shooter did not have the lawful authority to kill him.

The only ‘live’ issue was that no one had identified the accused man, Baptist, as being the shooter.

In his defense, Baptist made a statement from the dock, which basically repeated what he had told police during the interview before he was charged for the murder.

Baptist said that he was at a Chinese-owned shop at Allenby Street when he saw a dark-skinned man, who was wearing a green T-Shirt, and the man handed him something and told him to follow him, and he did.

He later realized that the man had given him, a gun; the same gun police had busted him with on the evening of Parham’s murder.

Justice Williams, after carefully going over the circumstantial evidence against Baptist, concluded that the man who was dressed in the green T-shirt on the evening of the murder of Devin Parham was the person who shot and killed him with the Glock 9mm pistol which had tested positive for the slugs from the gun police found Baptist with.

Justice Williams told the court that he did not believe the dock statement of Baptist, and that he murdered Devin Parham.

The evidence the prosecution marshaled was compelling, coherent, and convincing, and when the judge concluded his examination, he pronounced: “Valentine Baptist, you’re guilty of murder.”

Feature photo: Valentine Baptist