Victim told the court she trusted her boss

Patricia Cox, who survived an alleged murder plot gone sour and survived,  indicated to a court yesterday that she had trusted her boss, attorney Joseph Melville, to such an extent that she did not think that he would have conspired with three men to kill her. As a result, she did not suspect her life was in danger when Melville instructed her to go with the men — Jason Holder, Ainsley Alleyne and Hilton Winchester, to collect legal documents. Cox, a former secretary of Melville but now an account clerk, also denied an assertion by defence attorney Nathaniel King, that she had joined in a scheme with the men to pretend that they had killed her and collect the $40, 000 “hit” money from Melville. Melville, Winchester and Holder  are charged with conspiracy to murder Cox, attempted murder, kidnapping her and assaulting her. However, only Melville and Winchester are before Justice Melville Baird in the Port-of-Spain First Assizes facing the charges. Holder cannot be found and Alleyne, who had turned State witness, died sometime after testifying in this matter at the Magistrates’ Court.

The State’s case lead by senior prosecutor Trevor Ward and assisted by prosecutor George Busby, is that Melville hired the men to kill Cox.  The men took Cox to Cumberland Hill, St James, where they  planned to kill her. But that plan was interfered with when Cox made a roll down a hill to a short lived freedom, and later, when a man interrupted Holder’s choke-hold on her. When Holder went after the man, Cox regained her consciousness, freed herself and escaped. King and Ken Sagar, attorneys for Melville, concluded their extensive cross-examination of Cox which started on Monday and ended yesterday. Winchester’s attorney Thomas Cunningham, started his cross-examination yesterday. Cox had testified that she had borrowed a car from Melville to attend a christening in Penal with her boyfriend, and when she went to Melville’s home to return the vehicle about 1 am on  June 25, 2001, she met Holder and a client of Melville, named Jackimo Brewster, in the kitchen of Melville’s Sangre Grande house. They were bareback and wearing boxer shorts.

She had a conversation with Brewster who went into a room. On his return, he spoke to her and she left with the vehicle and returned it later that morning about 8 am. When she went to the office, she also met Holder sitting in her boss’ chair. He told her that Melville had left him there. She said, on June 28, 2001, when she left with Holder in a car with two other men on Melville’s instructions, she did not think “anything like that” was going to happen to her.  She did not ask Melville where she was going because she thought he had already spoken to Holder. However, in retrospect, she told King, she should have asked Melville where they were going. Most of King’s latter cross-examination hinged on questions suggesting that the men had taken Cox to Cumberland Hill, but did not really want to kill her. He even suggested to her that they did not want to kill her but she responded with an emphatic yes, they wanted to kill me.

King was also putting certain suggestions to Cox which prompted Ward to object on the ground that King’s suggestions did not relate to his client Melville, but to other persons who were on Cumberland Hill.  Ward indicated to the Court that if King continues to put those questions he will have to prove them, bearing in mind that they relate to other persons. King informed the Court that he will do so because what he was putting was his instructions. Hearing continues today with further cross-examination from Cunningham.