While delivering closing arguments in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston on Monday, prosecutor Andrea Martin-Swaby claimed that Omar Collymore took his wife, Simone Campbell-Collymore, away from the safety of her parents’ house and not only failed to protect her but had her murdered.

Campbell-Collymore, along with taxi operator Winston Walters, was shot and killed on Stanley Terrace in Red Hills, St Andrew on January 2, 2018.

Collymore is facing trial for the double murder and is being tried jointly with Michael Adams, Shaquilla Edwards and Dwayne Pink.

Prosecutors theorise that Campbell-Collymore was killed so Collymore could claim the benefits on two life insurance policies belonging to his wife. Combined, both policies were worth $100 million.

The prosecution also painted Collymore as a desperate man whose life was falling apart.

“December 2017 was a very important month. It was the month that Simone moved out of her parents’ house to go and live with Omar at 5 Stanley Terrace. You mean to tell me that Simone didn’t even live out a proper month alive in your company and under your care?” Martin-Swaby said on Monday.

Campbell-Collymore and Walters were shot by two men as they waited to be let into the apartment complex where the businesswoman lived with her husband.

At the time when the bodies of Campbell-Collymore and Walters were being pumped with bullets, Collymore was reportedly fixing a tyre on his wife’s black Mercedes Benz. The tyre on the motor vehicle reportedly picked up a puncture, and as a result, Campbell-Collymore was forced to move around by other means, including chartering a taxi.

Martin-Swaby told a very attentive jury that even when Collymore’s daughter alerted him to the fact that people were running away from the pool area and some were arguing, he continued to put on the tyre.

“Isn’t it ironic that on the 2nd of January 2018 at 2:30 am, Mr Collymore said that he came from parties and noticed that his wife’s tyre was flat. When has it ever been that you and your mother both have a flat tyre on your Benz one night after the other,” the prosecutor said, making reference to the fact that a motor vehicle belonging to Campbell-Collymore’s mother also reportedly picked up a flat tyre, mysteriously.

“It goes even further. I found it interesting and maybe you do too. Who is examining a vehicle at 2:30 am to discover a tyre that miraculously is flat? Ladies and members of the jury, thirteen hours later, at the same time that his wife was being shot at the gate, he’s fixing this tyre. You are not fixing it at 9:00 am, 10:00 am, 11:00 am. Is it ironic, coincidental or is it deliberate? It gets worse because you say, that whilst you were fixing that tyre in the afternoon, you heard people arguing and you saw people running out of the pool. Your eight-year-old daughter at the time, asked you why they were acting like that in the pool. Put yourself in the place of Mr Omar Collymore. All of us know that Stanley Terrace is not like Brooke Valley where maybe you hear gunshots and that is just a common thing.”

Regarding Shaquilla Edwards, the prosecutor invited the jury to consider that he admitted to being a part of the murder plot.

“Who gives a question-and-answer interview, in the presence of their attorney and in that interview said you followed the lady that the programme was being run on. You said that several vehicles were rented. Simone Collymore’s murder was a massive operation, spanning several days, involving several persons. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, he was watching the woman at the foot of the hill. You saw a picture of the lady who is to be driving the Benz and you come here and say you did everything to stay away from any plot to kill. You can’t fool well-reasoned, well-thinking people.

Martin-Swaby told the seven-member jury that Campbell-Collymore was to be killed over a period of several days. She said that any vehicle Campbell-Collymore was travelling in was marked for death, including the taxi driven by Winston Walters.

Martin-Swaby pointed out to the jury, that Adams, during an unworn statement he gave in court mentioned that he was certain that Jim had been released from the Horizon Remand Centre in December 2017. She raised questions about the reasons he would want to send a man like Jim the license plate numbers of vehicles.

“Michael Adams gave an unworn statement and I couldn’t ask him anything from where he was. He said, “I know as a fact that Jim came from Horizon on the 31st of December 2017 and he said it with confidence. In fact, I almost thought it was him who went to pick him up from Horizon. January 1, 2018 was the first time that Jim was communicating with Adams. Adams said, ‘Jim and I do business and on January 2, I am doing business in downtown Kingston and Jim asked me to send him two license plate numbers’. Can somebody come from Horizon and ask me to send him license plate numbers? Does that make any sense?

“When I thought about what Mr Adams said, I put myself in those shoes and said let me think what would Andrea do. Anybody weh come from Horizon and call me to send them license plate numbers, I go to church, but that day when I tell you some things, you would never call back my phone. It is interesting that you were conveniently on Luke Lane doing business while Simone is in her establishment and the vehicle she entered that day is the same license plate that you sent. All along in the afternoon, the communications are going between the men. The only one we don’t see in the call data was Dwayne Pink.”

Martin-Swaby said that although that was true about Pink, Wade Blackwood – one of the shooters in the incident, who turned prosecution witness – “told us where he was”.

“He was very much there with Adams,” she said.

The trial continues today.