Killed for cocaine ...Victim beaten, stamped on and left to die

ONE of four men who allegedly carried out a “hit” on a Cedros man, after a cocaine deal went sour three years ago, went on trial for murder yesterday in the San Fernando High Court. Another man who was involved in the killing is the State’s main witness.

The case against Glenroy London, 43, a labourer of Point Ligoure who is charged with the murder of Clifford Mark, began yesterday in the First Criminal Assizes before Justice Melville Baird and a 12-member jury. London is being represented by Ian Stuart Brooke. According to an autopsy report, Mark died after being beaten and strangled. The jury of four women and eight men were yesterday shown photographs of Mark’s nude corpse, which was found tied to a juniper tree in Limefield Village. According to State prosecutor Joan Honore Paul, on November 12, 2000, two days before Mark was murdered, the State’s main witness, Byron Vespry, took London and others to Bamboo Village; here he pointed out where the victim lived. Later they plotted to kill Mark, if they could not get a quantity of cocaine from him.

The jury heard that early on November 14, 2000, London who was armed with a gun, and two other persons armed with cutlasses, dumped Mark into the trunk of a car and drove to the Cedros forest where they planassed (beat with flat side of cutlass) him while questioning him about the cocaine. Mark, who claimed he lost the drugs, was brutally beaten. Paul said Mark led them to a fig patch where he dug a hole but nothing was found. The jury heard that London repeatedly stamped on Mark’s face until he was unconscious and bleeding, then allegedly urinated on Mark and told the others: “Let we leave him and go back out. He go dead right there.” The case continues today at 9 am.