The man who was contracted to kill Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald’s second wife, said during his testimony in the Home Circuit Court on Thursday that leading up to the murder of the woman, the businessman took away his phone and periodically left him without the means to place phone calls.

Denvalyn Minott, who is currently serving an almost 20-year sentence for his role in the July 20, 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald, told the jurors and Justice Chester Stamp, who is presiding over the murder trial of Beachy Stout and his co-accused, Oscar Barnes, that he was not happy being relieved of his phone by the businessman.

Minott is the second witness to give evidence in the trial after a former employee of Beachy Stout finished giving his testimony on Wednesday.

According to Minott, the confiscation of his phone came after his second time meeting up with Beachy Stout in his office at a supermarket the businessman operated in Portland. The witness told the Court that his first time speaking with Beachy Stout was one Saturday when he visited the supermarket in search of a job from the businessman. The witness claimed that he had hoped to get a job which entailed offloading goods from trucks when deliveries came in to the supermarket.

However, on the first occasion when he expressed to Beachy Stout that he wanted a job at the establishment, the businessman allegedly lured him into a plot to kill his wife, Tonia. The witness alleged that he was promised $3 million to murder Tonia. He allegedly showed Minott a picture of his wife on a phone.

“When I left the office after the first time, I spoke to him after that. He called my phone. I had given him the number the same day when I spoke to him in his office. He told me to come and check him in his office. When I went to the office the second time, he asked me for my phone. He took it and then said, ‘you’re not going to need this phone anymore. He then said that he will provide me with a phone.”

The witness shared that after leaving Beachy Stout’s office on that occasion, he went downstairs to the supermarket and out of protest took up two bottles of rum from a shelf and proceeded to walk out of the establishment. He claimed that the security guard attempted to stop him from leaving with the bottles of rum.

“I told him that Beachy Stout took away my phone. I went home after that,” the witness said.

He said he spoke to the businessman about two days later when Beachy Stout sent his driver to visit him while he was sitting outside a bar.

“I saw a gray Toyota motorcar pull up. I went to the car and received a black scandal bag. I went inside the bag and took out a yellow cell phone. I opened the back of the phone and there was a Digicel sim card and a Lime sim card. I walked away from where I collected the phone and I set the chip inside the phone properly, then checked the credit on each chip.

“In about three minutes the phone rang. When I answered the phone, Beachy Stout said, ‘A me man, Beachy Stout man’. He told me to use the Digicel chip to call him personally. The lady [his wife] that he showed me on the phone, he said I was to use the Lime chip to call her. I had met the lady before. I met her one week in 2020 when I asked her for a job for my son,” the witness said.

After receiving the phone with the two sim cards, the witness said Beachy Stout called him one day and told him that he was coming to visit him at home.

He said he sat on the road side waiting for Beachy Stout, when the businessman called him and told him that he was on his way at the time.

“I sat down and saw a black BMW coming. I walked towards it and went into the back”.

According to Minott, when he sat down in the car, Beachy Stout introduced him officially to his wife. The witness claimed that Tonia, who the witness referred to as Mrs Mac, wanted to buy a gun, to kill somebody who had offended her.

“Mrs Mac said to me that she want a gun to buy to kill the man who killed her father. Mr Beachy Stout turned to me and said, ‘yea, a true she a talk’.”

The witness revealed in Court that the argument about her wanting to buy a gun to kill the man who murdered her dad, was just part of the plot to lure her to have her killed.

“I was taken to Mr Beachy Stout’s home in Dolphin Bay. He said to me that she believed our plot. He was telling me that he wanted her dead. He took me inside his yard, showed me around the house and showed me a back fence leading to an empty lot. When I was leaving he said, ‘a deh suh you fi walk and jump the fence’. He then took me back outside to the gate, then he let out the dogs out of a pen and I wanted to run. He said don’t run,” Minott claimed, sharing that Beachy Stout wanted the roughly five dogs to smell him, so the next time he came to the house, the dogs would be familiar with his scent.

After Beachy Stout showed him around the yard, the witness said he left and went home.

He claimed that on a different occasion, Tonia visited him at his home and they had a conversation. He said that when she left, he called Beachy Stout, who told him to keep up his act and continue to be friendly with Tonia.

By this time, the witness said Beachy Stout had already taken away the yellow phone he had given him to use and then gave him a black “banga” phone.

“This conversation was after he brought me to the house. He called me on the phone about two days later and said I was to bring the phone he gave me. When I brought the phone to the supermarket, I didn’t see him. I gave the phone to the security and said, ‘how this man take my phone from me and now I want a phone and cannot get any’. Then I walked away. I went to him again at a wholesale which is also his, on William Street. I told him I wanted a phone to use because I didn’t have any. He said, ‘I have a phone for you, but you have to get a chip for it’. When he said that, I felt so good in myself, believing that I would get back a Samsung like the one him take from me. I asked him when I would get back a phone and he said I should go down by Town Talk in the market area. He said I was supposed to go around there and I will see a phone shop where he can get anything from that shop if him want. I went but didn’t get the phone because the guy he sent me to wasn’t there,” the witness said, explaining that he went back to Beachy Stout to tell him what happened, then went home.

“Couple minutes after I reach home, he showed up in a silver motorcar,” the witness claimed.

He said he went inside the motor car and Beachy Stout handed him a black plastic bag which contained a “banga” phone and $150, 000.

“He then said to me, ‘put that inna your pocket’, referring to the money. He didn’t say what the money was for but I used the phone to call Beachy Stout and Mrs McDonald.

The witness alleged that Beachy Stout began to get impatient with him, because he was taking too long to kill Tonia. It was at this point that Minott claimed he brought Oscar Barnes into picture. He alleged that he told Barnes, that the plan was to kill Tonia. As far as the witness knew, Barnes was in on the plan. However, he said after a few attempts to catch Tonia flat-footed and kill her, Barnes expressed frustration.

“Barnes was the one I trusted to do the work because I couldn’t do it. I introduced him to the work. We took a taxi and it dropped us at Beachy Stout’s gate. We came out of the car and went into Beach Stout yard from the back fence. We sat down inside the yard for about two hours, before Mrs Mac drove in. She was driving a Toyota bus. She and the helper came out, pulled the grille and went inside.

“The purpose of going to the yard that night was to kill Mrs Mac. She wasn’t killed because the helper was there and she locked the grille. I explained to Barnes that I wanted a gun to buy for a lady. He said he had it in Manchioneal. I called Mrs Mac and told her I had the gun for her. She came to pick it up from Still Corner. Barnes said he needed some gas and Mrs Mac gave him $2,000 to go buy the gas.

“He went and got the gas and when he returned we moved off behind him. When we reached Zion Hill he came out of the car and said, ‘mi naa bother go Manchioneal’. He said he was going to Boston. Before we could reach Boston, we stopped at a ‘Rasta’ shop and he went in. I was in Mrs Mac’s car and I sat there for about 20 minutes and couldn’t see him coming. One of his cronies came out of his car and came to Mrs Mac’s car,” the witness said.

The witness said that he came out of Tonia’s car and went inside the building that Barnes had entered earlier.

“I went behind the Rasta building where an old fishing boat park up. I saw Mr Barnes and somebody else, but I didn’t see the other person’s face. Mr Barnes said dem ‘deh right deh suh’, but he couldn’t take it up because a lady was watching. Mr Barnes asked me for the money. I had $500,000 which I got from Mrs Mac and Beachy Stout. I left from where Barnes was and went back to the car.

“I spoke to Tonia and then Mr Barnes came to the car and said he needed money because I wasted his time. He said that because what he came to do, didn’t happen. We were there to kill Mrs Mac. He knew this before we reached the Rasta building. I explained to him that the money was not to buy any gun, but to kill Mrs Mac and then take the money. He agreed to the plan to kill Mrs Mac. I told him that Mrs Mac fi get stab up and her head cut off and no guns were supposed to be used. I explained this to him on the two occasions we had met up face-to-face.”