State closes case; defence begins

AFTER SIX weeks of leading the evidence of 37 witnesses, the State yesterday closed its case in the Cascade triple murder trial. Following the cross-examination of State witness Insp David Nedd of the Port-of-Spain Homicide Bureau by defence attorney Wayne Sturge, prosecutor Trevor Ward told the 12-member panel of jurors and two alternates that the State was closing its case. Defence witnesses are expected to begin giving evidence on Monday. During Sturge’s cross-examination of the witness, Justice Herbert Volney had suggested that copies of the mugshots taken when the accused had been charged, be made available to the jury so they could compare it with the images of the footage from the video tapes projected on the courtroom wall on May 26. The video recordings were taken at ABMs of Republic Bank’s Tunapuna West branch and Promenade Centre on December 12 and 13, 2001 respectively, where a man was seen conducting several transactions. State witness Angela Cropper had identified the man in the video as her great-nephew, Daniel Agard.

Agard, 21, and another man, 25-year-old Lester “Rat” Pitman, both of Upper Bushe Street, Maitagual, San Juan, are before Volney at the Port-of-Spain Second Criminal Court charged with the murders of 59-year-old environmentalist John Cropper, 83-year-old Canadian resident  Maggie Lee and 51-year-old BBC broadcaster Lynette Lithgow-Pearson. The bodies of the three were found with their throats slit at the Cropper’s Mt Ann Drive home at Second Avenue in Cascade on December 13, 2001. They had reportedly been murdered sometime between December 11 and 13. The post-mortem reports which were admitted into evidence on Tuesday, showed that the three had died as a result of the wounds sustained to their throats.

According to Volney, “the man in the dock is today’s man” and the man identified in the footage by John’s widow may not look the same and it would assist the jury if they saw what Agard had looked like then. “The jury are the ones to decide and the prosecution would want them to be sure,” he concluded. Nedd assured the judge that if mugshots had been taken, as is usually the case when someone was charged, copies would be supplied to the jury. When the jury was dismissed at 2 pm, the defence was in the process of making legal submissions. Agard is being represented by attorney Mario Merritt and Agard by Sturge and Leon Gokool.  State attorneys Ward and George Busby are prosecuting.