PROSECUTOR Kathy-Ann Pyke in a hard-hitting, no holds barred address to a Supreme Court jury yesterday maintained that Latoya Wilks, the former line cook charged with the 2012 murder of forty-year-old Italian chef Paolo Avigliano in the kitchen of the Caffé Da Vinci at the Market Place in St Andrew, had not acted in self-defence but had been “cool and deadly” when she plunged a 10-inch blade into his neck that night.

Wilks on Thursday, in an unsworn testimony from the docks, rehashed for the court a series of encounters which she said led up to her delivering the fatal blow. The then 23-year-old told the court that Avigliano on the night in question, after accidentally splashing her with hot oil had refused to apologise and labelled her a bitch when pressed to say he was sorry. She said the situation escalated after she reported him to the manager for the restaurant at the time resulting in him telling her “you (expletive deleted) bitch, informer muss dead…you are an expletive informer”. She said he further told her “ yuh (expletive deleted) black bitch; mi ago get rid a yuh tiddeh” and also threatened to take up a skillet that was nearby to douse her with hot oil.

According to Wilks, in the lead up to the fatal moment, Avigliano who had exited the kitchen, re-entered in a fit of rage, took up an eight-inch knife off the table and threatened to throw it at her.

She said when she told the Italian she would be reporting him to the boss again and started walking away to do so, he told her he would “strangle” her.

“I have seen Pablo angry before, I have seen him upset, I have seen him in his temper tantrums before but that look he had on his face when he said it was was walking towards me it is as if he was possessed , his eyes were red, I have never seen that look on his face before…I did not know what he was going to do, but in that moment I was afraid. He grabbed onto me and when he grabbed me I took up the knife and held it up,” Wilks testified.

“I had no intention of using the knife to stab him or hurt him, I just wanted him to see the knife and back off…I thought he would back off …I was trying to push him off and I kept going backward and he pushed me, I stumbled, my hand went down with the knife and I don’t know what happened after that,” she told the court.

After the stabbing Wilks said she was shocked and did not know what to do.

But yesterday Pyke, in taking the jurors back through footage of the incident obtained from the cameras at the restaurant that night, said Wilks had lied to the court and had omitted key details from her account, inserting details of her own in order to sway them.

“We hear a lot about Paolo having a bad temper, his common-law wife said he was sweet and feisty but she said he was never physically abusive,” she said in imploring the jury not to allow those attributes to colour their perception.

“Everything about this video is important. Who picked up the knife first? The law is clear that you attack when you are in imminent fear for your life. At what point does self-defence come into play when you have a knife and you stab and the person does not have a knife? That is not self-defence,” she charged.

“We are hearing about Miss Wilks and her sweet personality but (the person in the video) is not somebody who was sweet…when you look on the video she was not under threat, she was not afraid, she brought the fight to him, too; she was on the warpath,” Pyke said. She pointed out further that contrary to what Wilks said about dropping the knife right after the stabbing and being in shock and not knowing what happened afterwards, the video showed someone who was quite collected, even though her workmates were clearly frantic.

“After he got the wound she still had the knife, she was still gesticulating. She got paper towel, I thought she was going to help him; instead what she did was wipe what appeared to be his blood off her hands and face and then she got on her phone,” Pyke said, while showing jurors clips of Wilks stepping over the body of the downed chef while on her phone even as other staff members ran to and fro in utter panic.

“She is the one who pulled a knife first, fight for fight, and when it is a fight for a fight and you pull a knife that is what I call excessive force, this is not a girl who is afraid or intimidated. She charges down with the knife, he doesn’t have anything, he tries to hold onto her hand…this is someone in war mode, there is no self-defence here,” Pyke said.

“Pictures cannot lie, Miss Wilks in her statement from the docks lied,” the prosecutor told the court, referencing previous statements from witnesses who told the court that while the Italian had cursed and raved he had not issued any threats to Wilks that night.

“What she said is complete lie, there are portions of it she very subtly and slickly doesn’t mention, for example, that she took up the knife and stabbed at him and that she marched down and was holding the knife and stabbing at him before they were separated and he went outside before the fatal stab,” Pyke pointed out.

“She paints the picture as if he was the only one upset that day, that’s not true, she has the knife in her hand. Who is the one who has the intention to kill? This man is talking at her, quarrelling but he doesn’t touch her until she has the knife…she said she grabbed up the knife when he came at her but that is not true. Even though we have the the evidence of the camera she is still not telling the truth,” the prosecutor said.

In painting Wilks as “cool and deadly”, she invited jurors to note that the accused did not put down the murder weapon until after Avigliano, who had stood stockstill several moments after getting the stab, crumpled to the floor.

“Her co-workers looked more shocked than her, she looks very calm, the calm deliberation of someone who decided to deal with a situation, cool and deadly, this is not any sort of shock and panic and terror…she took up the knife three times…it was no accident; the verdict in this case ought to be murder,” Pyke said, adding that only the lesser charge of manslaughter could be laid if the jury were to think otherwise.

Yesterday, a clergyman, one of three character witnesses called by Wilks’ attorney Sean Kinghorn said Wilks, whom he had known since 2010, became a baptised member of the church in 2012, later becoming youth president in 2015 and a member of the church’s council.

“Latoya comes across as someone who is willing to learn, she strikes me also as someone who is humble and not afraid or ashamed to acknowledge if and when she has made an error of judgement,” he told the court.

A second witness said she had known Wilks since 2001 when she and her mother had lived with her son’s family in England for several years. She said Wilks who was 11 years old when she met her at that time, “was very humble and willing; she put her hands to anything.

“She was a child who when you walked into the home, she would not speak unless she was spoken to, very humble,” she told the court.

She said her acquaintance with the family continued even after she resettled in Jamaica and they returned some years later and went on to describe Wilks as “a bag of joy”.

And Wilk’s latest employer, an operator of a small daycare, who told the court she has been her manager for the past three years, described her as, “very caring and very loving to the children”. She said herself and other employees had a good rapport with Wilks and would have “disagreements but not arguments”.

“It is always that we can talk it through. Personally, I’ve known her for 26 years…she is very outgoing, bubbly, confident, very friendly,” she said. When asked to rate Wilks as a worker she said, “I would say eight out of 10, none of us are perfect, I may even rate myself less”.

Yesterday, Supreme Court Judge Justice Vivene Harris, who is presiding over the case, said expectations were that the matter would be completed by Tuesday of next week.

“I don’t believe it is a simple case based on the number of legal issues that have arisen,” Harris said, noting that she would commence her summation after Kinghorn ends his address.

“Justice cannot be rushed,” she said.

The matter resumes on Monday morning at which time Kinghorn is expected to address the jury. Wilks, who has been out on bail since 2012, has had her bail extended.