News

Woman freed of murder rap

By BARBARA GAYLE, Staff Reporter

A HOME CIRCUIT Court jury, after hearing evidence that a 39-year-old deacon was stabbed to death shortly after he took a machete from his girlfriend and chased Norma Smith, the mother of his four children, freed Smith of the murder charge.

The deceased, Donald Grant, an electrician, of Bond Street, Kingston, who was a deacon at the Mount Covenant Calvary Healing Temple, in Trench Town, Kingston had just returned from church and was at his girlfriend's house when Smith arrived.

The Crown led evidence at the trial which was presided over by Mr. Justice Basil Reid that on the night of March 28, 2004, Smith, a 39-year-old vendor, of Christopher Road, Denham Town, Kingston, stabbed Grant in the chest.

Lisa Bailey, girlfriend of the deceased, said that on the day of the incident, Grant knocked on her door at Race Course Lane, Denham Town and asked her to let him in.

The accused, she said, came to her front door also and hit the deceased with an object, on his foot.

Bailey said she had a machete in her hand and the deceased took the machete from her and chased the accused.

Grant, she said, returned some time after and she noticed that he was bleeding from the chest.

Cross-examined by attorneys-at-law, Janet Nosworthy and Belinda Bryan, who represented Smith, Bailey admitted that she said at the preliminary inquiry that Smith hit the deceased on his foot.

Smith beaten

Evidence was also given that Smith told policemen at the Denham Town police station that Grant had beaten her that night.

Smith, in her defence, gave a history of severe beatings she received from the deceased. She said in one instance she was hospitalised for four to five days at the Kingston Public Hospital.

Smith said she went to Bailey's house on March 28, 2004 to ask Grant for maintenance money for the children. She said she took the deceased to the Family Court for maintenance but when he got the summons he refused to take it.

She said that the relationship between her and the deceased was "sweet at first" but turned sour after the birth of their first child in 1997.