The first witness in the murder trial of Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald testified in the Home Circuit Court on Monday that his boss quickly returned to his usual business a day after his wife, Tonia McDonald, was killed.

Businessman Everton McDonald and his co-accused Oscar Barnes are being tried for the July 20, 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald.

Her partially burnt body was found slumped beside her razed car along the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland with her throat slashed.

The jury hearing the matter comprises six men and one woman.

The male witness, who said he had been like a son to Everton, also claimed that shortly after Tonia’s murder her husband started saying that his wife had been unfaithful and that she was responsible for more than $30 million going missing from a wholesale business he operated.

The witness said that the day after the killing the wholesale was opened for business as if nothing had happened the day before.

“We opened the shop the next day after she died. He came there, but just went upstairs. He was cursing and said he didn’t know where she found man and go kill off herself,” the witness told the court.

He said that McDonald, who appeared normal, called two women into his office to check the books, while blaming Tonia for making him lose more than $30 million.

The witness said that after that was said McDonald ordered him to remove a vehicle belonging to Tonia from his property.

“He told me to take her car and carry it to her mother’s house and get rid of it out of the yard. I knew he was referring to that car because I used to drive it, and it was the only car he could be talking about,” the witness testified.

He said that he asked McDonald if he could move the motor vehicle the following day because it was raining. However, McDonald shouted at him, pressing him to follow the instruction.

According to the witness, McDonald had been encouraging Tonia to play a more active role in his business. The witness claimed that after she received that encouragement, she started play more of a “boss role”.

“Mr Mac told her to come to the shop and make herself useful. He said she is not supposed to just stay up at the house. The name she used to call me was Mandela. After the boss spoke to her, she started showing interest in the cashiers. She accepted me as Mr Mac’s right hand,” the witness said.

He recalled the day he learned of the murder. According to the witness, McDonald received back-to-back phone calls alerting him to Tonia’s demise.

“We were in the wholesale and somebody called Mr McDonald on the phone and him burst out. Him seh, ‘How nobody nuh tell me seh mi wife car burn up? Mi affi hear from foreign.’ I was in the shop when I heard him saying again, ‘Really, how she reach deh suh? Mi tell her bout dem man deh weh she a keep, enuh.’ I heard him ask the person on the phone if they were sure it was Tonia’s car. He said he wanted one of us workers to drive him to the scene. He kept saying, ‘They killed my wife’ and he held his head down like he was going to cry,” the witness said, adding that he accompanied McDonald to the scene.

“I saw her on the ground. Mr Mac said ‘It is Tonia, dem kill mi wife’.”

McDonald is being represented by attorneys Christopher Townsend, Earl Hamilton, Courtney Rowe, and John Jacobs.

Co-accused Barnes, whose bail was revoked on Monday, is represented by attorney Ernest Davis.