Voir dire underway in trial for 2009 murder/hijacking

Jul 27, 2017 Court Stories, Features / Columnists, News

A voir dire (trial within a trial) is underway in the murder trial of Basil Morgan. The legal proceeding is ongoing to determine certain legal issues in the matter
Basil Morgan was among a gang arrested and charged for the murder of Woddete Roberts.
He is currently on trial before Justice James Bovell-Drakes and a 12-member mixed jury at the Georgetown High Court. The trial commenced on July 15, last.
Roberts, called “Woddete” or “Buck Man,” was murdered some time between November 3 and November 4, 2009. He 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 then 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.
Earlier in the trial, Crime Scene photographer, Detective Desmond Johnny, tendered several photographs taken at a crime scene for a murder which took place in November 2009.
In his evidence, Detective Johnny provided the court with details of the crime scene of Woddete Roberts’s murder.
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 therefore tendered into evidence.
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 later, 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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