THE four men who are now on trial for the January 2, 2018 double murder of Simone Campbell-Collymore and taxi operator Winston Walters instructed their attorneys to file no-case submissions on their behalf before the case is handed over to the jury for deliberation and verdict.

Trial judge Justice Leighton Pusey listened attentively to the arguments put forward by the attorneys representing the men accused of the double murder.

On trial in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston for the murders are Campbell-Collymore’s husband Omar Collymore, Michael Adams, Shaquilla Edwards and Dwayne Pink.

Sasha-Kay Shaw, who, along with Diane Jobson, is representing Collymore, implored Justice Pusey to take into consideration that her client was not at the scene during the murders.

“The account of January 2, 2018, comes from Mr Blackwood [one of two shooters in the murder]. What is clear is that Mr Collymore was not present at the scene. It is for the Crown to then prove how he encouraged or assisted the commission of the murder. My submission is that the evidence that is before you does not show those elements of the offence. There is no evidence before you that shows that any action of Mr Collymore on the day of question assisted or made the crime any easier,” Shaw said as she raised arguments regarding call data records that were presented by a police expert during the trial.

According to Shaw, the call records are not sufficient to implicate or even imprison her client.

“What we have is numerous call data records. There is no evidence before you that Mr Collymore spoke to anyone that made anything easier or assisted any particular individual in the commission of the offence. The Crown would be asking the court to make inferences as to the nature of communication and speculate the content of whether any line of attempted communication actually occurred and what was the content of the communication, as well as to speculate the purpose for any attempted communication.

“There is nothing in the record that leads to only one particular inference because the nature of the communication or attempted communication was not restricted to one day in particular. Evidence from the expert spoke about the range that is available to the court. It was information that was requested and only a particular range was requested and that is from the 1st of December 2017 to March 5, 2018. In the expert evidence, the text messages were read out and formed a part of the records. The Crown has not shown that on the second of January, Mr Collymore did anything,” she said.

Wade Blackwood, who confessed to his role as one of the shooters in the double murder, accepted a plea deal this year from prosecutors and received a reduction in his sentence. Blackwood essentially agreed to give evidence against all the others he claimed were involved in the planning and execution of the crime.

Treating the call data records evidence as weak, Shaw said the court is only left to rely on the testimony of Blackwood, a confessed murderer.

Shaw was adamant that Blackwood cannot speak to any agreement between Collymore and everyone else.

It is alleged that Collymore offered $2 million for the murder of his wife, with allegations that he had eyes set on life insurance money worth more than $100 million.

The other attorneys who made no-case submissions were Sanjay Smith, Gnoj McDonald and Ernest Davis.