Witness pointed out accused in ID parade

A STATE witness yesterday claimed that hours after giving evidence at the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court in the Cascade triple murder inquiry in 2002, she realised that part of what she had said under oath had been a mistake. During cross-examination at the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court, State witness Jacqueline Maharaj, of Second Avenue in Cascade, yesterday revealed that she had been mistaken when she had said that the man she had pointed out during an identification parade on December 20, 2001 had been “bareback.” “I thought I was talking the truth at the time,” she said in response to a barrage of questions by defence attorney Wayne Sturge. “It was only after I went home and reflected on what I had said I realised I had made a mistake,” she continued.

The man, 25-year-old Lester Pitman, is charged along with 21-year-old Daniel Agard with the murders of 59-year-old John Cropper, 83-year-old Maggie Lee, and 51-year-old visiting Canadian resident, Lynette Lichglow Pearson. Their bodies were found in a bathroom of  Cropper’s Mt Ann Drive home at Second Avenue in Cascade on December 13, 2001. Their throats had been slit and they had reportedly been murdered sometime between December 11 and 13. The two Bush Street, San Juan men are being represented by attorneys Sturge and Mario Merritt. State attorneys Trevor Ward and George Busby are prosecuting. Maharaj, an aroma therapist by profession, yesterday told the court that at around 5.30 pm on December 11, 2001, she was called to the front of her house by her daughter.

There, she said, she observed a young man slowly walking up a track leading to the Cropper’s house, casting occasional glances backwards. At one time, he stopped completely and turned around, she said, giving her the opportunity to look at him for a few minutes. With the aid of her distance glasses, she said, “I observed his face for three minutes because there was nothing obstructing my view.” On December 20, 2001, Maharaj said, she was able to point him out during an identification parade at Police Headquarters. He was fully clothed, she said, but could not recall what he was wearing. Yesterday, in the presence of Justice Herbert Volney, the 12-member jury and the two alternates, she identified that young man as Pitman.

Another witness, Insp Wellington Nero, testified that the identification had been conducted in the presence of Pitman’s mother, Cheryl Pitman. The accused, he said, had appeared with a small scar on his forehead. The scar had been covered with a small piece of tape and tape was placed on the same spot on the foreheads of the other eight men who were part of the parade, Nero said. When Maharaj entered the room, she was briefed on the procedures to be followed during an identification parade and, after looking at the nine men, she pointed out Pitman. Nero insisted that the accused was never “bareback” in the presence of the witness and was wearing a blue plaid shirt at the time. Shortly after she had exited the room, Nero said, Pitman changed into a blue T-shirt and Maharaj’s daughter, Anjani Elizabeth Maharaj entered. She looked at the men but was unable to point out anyone who looked like the man she had seen close to the Cropper’s house on December 11, Nero said.

The younger Maharaj had, on Monday, testified that she had pointed out a man who was standing in the parade. Two young men, she had said, had been in the vicinity of the Cropper’s house on the day in question. She had been able to get a full frontal view of the one she had pointed out for close to one minute. The other, the businesswoman had said, had been sitting or stooping and she had been unable to see him clearly. However, under cross-examination, Nero maintained that she had not pointed out any of the men in the line-up. Hearing resumes today.