Steven 'Shorty' Malcolm

WESTERN BUREAU -- Yesterday's first day of the coroner's inquest into last year's death of national footballer Steven 'Shorty' Malcolm found out that the car was travelling between 70 and 100 miles per hour and may have been driven by Malcolm's team-mate, Theodore Whitmore.

Four witnesses took the stand in the Falmouth court yesterday, with about four more slated to appear when the proceedings continue next Monday.

Theodore Whitmore

Malcolm was killed in a car crash along the Spring Hill main road in Trelawny while he, Whitmore and their friend, Charles Hewan were on their way to Montego Bay after a football match at the National Stadium in Kingston.

A certified motor vehicle examiner testified that he examined the 1993 Toyota Grande Mark II the day after the accident and it was a total wreck.

"The top was pressed down and levelled down to the body. The front and rear of the vehicle were extensively damaged and the steering wheel twisted," Garnett Hosang said.

He added that based on the extensive damage that the vehicle sustained, it must have been travelling at a minimum of 70 miles per hour.

But Peter Campbell, an eyewitness to the accident, maintained that the vehicle appeared to have been travelling at about 100 miles per hour. He told the inquest that at about 9:20 pm he was driving his motor car from Rock towards Duncans when on reaching Spring Hill, he saw three cars.

"One of the cars was travelling slowly in front of me while a Toyota Camry and a Toyota Grande Mark II were travelling in the opposite direction. The Mark II overtook the Camry then swerved to the left, climbed a 20-foot embankment and then overturned," Campbell said.

He added that he rushed to the scene of the accident and saw two men coming out of the bushes.

"One of them was bleeding from the forearm and the other from his shoulder," he told the court.

According to Campbell, he heard the men asking: "Where is Shorty, where is Shorty?"

Campbell said that shortly afterwards several persons arrived on the scene with crowbars and other objects and the men told him Shorty was still in the car. The men, he said, managed to force open the rear left door of the car and pulled out a man, who was identified as "Shorty", from the back seat of the vehicle.

On cross-examination by clerk of court Tyrone Hilton, Campbell said that he did not know who was driving the car.

In his testimony, Sergeant Noel Grant said that when he arrived on the scene of the accident at about 9:40 pm on Saturday, January 28, he saw a man lying on the back seat of the car with his head bashed in. The police officer said that he found one of the bumpers of the car in a nine-foot tree.

Grant said that in response to his questions, Whitmore told him that he was driving his Toyota Grande Mark II from Kingston to Montego Bay when the right rear tyre blew out.

According to Grant, Whitmore added that after the tyre blew out, he lost control of the vehicle, which overturned and killed "Shorty". The sergeant said the disclosure was made in the presence of other policemen.

Grant also told the court that the area in which the accident occurred was a 30-mile per hour zone, and there were signs erected in the area to show the speed limit.

Grant also testified that six days after the accident, Whitmore was given a warning notice for intended prosecution for dangerous and careless driving and asked to give a sample of blood for testing but he refused to provide the sample. The lawman added that at a later meeting in Montego Bay between himself, Whitmore and his attorney Walter Scott, Deputy Superintendent of Police Nigel Hart and other officers, Whitmore said that he was not the driver of the ill-fated car.

The hearing continues next Monday when Constable Donald Bingall, Deputy Superintendent Hart, Leslie Madden and Charles Hewan are expected to testify.

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