Crime scene photographs tendered in trial for 2009 murder/hijacking

Jul 14, 2017 Court Stories, Features / Columnists, News

Crime Scene photographer, Detective Desmond Johnny, yesterday, tendered several photographs taken at a crime scene for a murder which took place in November 2009.

Accused: Basil Morgan

In his evidence, Detective Johnny provided the court with details of the crime scene of Woddete Roberts’s murder.

Roberts, called “Woddete” or “Buck Man,” was murdered some time between November 3 and November 4, 2009.

Roberts was allegedly killed during a robbery. It is alleged that a gang had hijacked Roberts and his two friends in a Tacoma pick-up Land Cruiser and took them along a trail on the Soesdyke-Linden Highway. Roberts’s friends managed to escape from the hijackers but he, Roberts, was later found dead on the trail.

Basil Morgan was among those arrested and charged for the murder.

He is currently on trial before Justice James Bovell Drakes and a 12-member mixed jury at the Georgetown High Court. The trial commenced earlier this week, after a jury was empanelled.

In the trial, the accused is being represented by Attorney- at-law, Lyndon Amsterdam, while the State’s Case is presented by State Prosecutor, Tuanna Hardy.

Yesterday Prosecutor Hardy called a number of witnesses to the stand including Detective Johnny.

Johnny told the court that he went to a scene following reports of an alleged murder committed at Dora, Soesdyke-Linden Highway.

There, the detective said that he took photographic exposures of a crime scene. A total of 57 photographs were later tendered as part of the evidence provided to the court by Detective Johnny. Spent shells allegedly collected from the crime scene were also tendered into evidence yesterday.

Reports on the murder suggested that Roberts left his home around 21:00 hours on November 4, 2009 with two of his friends, in a gold-coloured Toyota Tacoma pick-up Land Cruiser.

The men were said to have been on their way to the gold and diamond fields, when they were stopped by a group of men dressed as policemen. The party of policemen was said to be searching for arms and ammunition.

It was some time after, that the men were hijacked by a group of men, who duct taped them and placed them in the tray of the Tacoma vehicle. While Roberts’s friends managed to escape their captors, his body was later found just off a trail at Dora, Soesdkye- Linden highway.

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