Murder trial in East Dry River

LAVENTILLE residents, including several known gang members, converged on the outskirts of a murder scene as a convoy of vehicles carrying a judge, 15 jurors, attorneys, a resident murder accused, a State witness, court officials, the media and scores of heavily armed police officers, took a murder trial to Laventille Road, East Dry River, Port-of-Spain. The accused, Wendell “Bullen” Dubarry, in shackles, made a 30-minute visit to the area in which he grew up, after being incarcerated for almost three years. The overcast sky mirrored the look on his face. Dubarry is before Madame Justice Alice Yorke-Soo Hon at the Port-of-Spain Third Criminal Court charged with the July 27, 2001 murder of Mario Cobus. Cobus was shot in the neck and was pronounced dead later that night.

As the jury gathered around the rail on which Cobus was allegedly sitting when he was shot, the State’s main witness Anastasia Gilford was called on to re-enact, to the best of her ability, the events of the incident on the night in question. Since parts of the structure in the vicinity of the murder had been slightly altered, Gilford was required to point out the key areas that were of importance to the case. Gilford, the mother of Cobus’ two children, had been “liming” with him and their son at the entrance to her home when he was fatally shot. The onlookers, most unusually quiet, tried to catch what was being said by the witness in answer to a series of questions by State attorneys Nalini Singh and Jennifer Martin, and defence attorney Ian Brooks. At one time, under the shroud of black umbrellas, the voice of the defence attorney could be heard accusing the witness of telling “a tissue of lies,” all of which she refuted.

Soo Hon invited the jury to feel free to ask questions for clarity. The 15 took turns standing on the landing on which Gilford had stood moments prior to the shooting, in order to get a “feel” of what she had experienced on that night. Under cross-examination by Brooks at the courtroom earlier, the witness, who is in protective custody, had indicated that her observation of  Dubarry loitering near her home after the murder had caused her to divulge his identity to the police. In her initial statement to the police on July 28, 2001, she had only given a description of the accused. This, she maintained, she had done because she had been in fear for her life and that of her children.

Brooks, however, had put to her that she had fabricated the whole story because she had been “chained up.” In response, Gilford said she did not “come here to waste the court’s time” and had nothing to gain by lying and making “allegations.” Gilford said, “When the shooting occurred I knew the identity of the shooter,” who she said she had come face to face with. She said she had been scared when she heard the shots and shocked when she realised it was someone she knew who had shot her boyfriend.

The attorney highlighted what he saw as an inconsistency in Gilford’s two statements to the police. According to Brooks, the witness had said in the first statement that she had heard three or four explosions and then saw the accused with the gun, and in her second statement she had seen the accused with the gun and then heard two explosions. Gilford maintained that both recollections were correct and that there was no inconsistency. Gilford was relieved and a new witness will be called when hearing resumes tomorrow.