PASSMORE Millings and Andre Ennis, the two men who were convicted for the 2007 murders of a couple in a case famously dubbed ‘the good Samaritans case’, and who in 2021 lost their appeal against their sentences and convictions, have taken their fight for freedom to the London-based Privy Council.

The matter is among 76 listed on the website of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for which applications seeking permission to appeal have been lodged.

Applications for permission to appeal are considered by an appeal panel of the Judicial Committee. Applications are generally decided without a hearing. The appeal panel decides first whether an application for permission to appeal is admissible (that is, whether the Judicial Committee has jurisdiction to entertain an appeal). If the appeal panel determines that an application is inadmissible, it will refuse permission on that ground alone and not consider the content of the application. The appeal panel gives a reason for deciding that the application is inadmissible.

Ennis of Havendale, St Andrew, and Millings, also called Shane Brown, of Gregory Park, St Catherine, both labourers, were in 2012 found guilty by a jury in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston for slashing the throats of Taiwo McKenzie and his girlfriend Janelle Whyte and dumping them in bushes in Mount Salus, St Andrew. The men were each sentenced to life with the stipulation that they serve 50 years’ imprisonment at hard labour in respect of Whyte’s death, and 40 years in respect of McKenzie’s death. However, the Court of Appeal in 2021 in dismissing their appeal, reduced the pre-parole period of 50 years by 10 years.

McKenzie and Whyte were reported missing on November 8, 2007 after relatives could not contact them. On November 9, 2007, the couple’s bodies were found in bushes at Mount Salus, St Andrew. Their throats had been slashed. Through what the Appeal Court called “good police work, the use of technology and the assistance of an accomplice”, the two were on convicted on June 20, 2012.

The main witness for the prosecution was the accomplice George Cooper, who testified that on November 6, 2007, at about 6:00 pm, he was the pillion passenger on a motorcycle that Ennis was riding, when it collided with a car that McKenzie was driving. Cooper’s ankle was injured and the motorcycle was damaged in the crash. McKenzie said at the time that he would pay the medical expenses and the repair bill. They waited at the spot until someone, identified as Millings, came to secure the motorcycle. McKenzie then transported Cooper, Ennis and Whyte, who was one of McKenzie’s two passengers, to the University Hospital of the West Indies, where Cooper was treated and released.

According to court records, the police spoke to the parties while they were at the hospital. During that discussion and the examination of documents for the vehicles, it was discovered that the motorcycle was not registered for use on the public roadway, at which point McKenzie said he would not pay for the cost of its repair. He maintained, however, that he would pay for Cooper’s medication. Ennis was unhappy with McKenzie’s position.

Prosecutors said Ennis contacted Cooper the next day and got him to arrange a meeting with McKenzie at a particular location to deliver the required medication. It was, however, a ruse.

Cooper claimed that Millings forced him at gunpoint to play his part in luring McKenzie to the spot. Whyte unfortunately accompanied McKenzie to the location. Upon their arrival, Cooper said Ennis and Millings commandeered McKenzie’s vehicle. Ennis then drove to a “hilly part of Havendale” and gave McKenzie a telephone to make calls to secure money to pay for the repairs to the motorcycle. When those calls bore no fruit, the men took Whyte’s bank card, demanded her password, and wrote it down.

Millings reportedly then said,“Dis nah go no weh and it gone too far, a better we finish them and done”. Cooper said Ennis and Millings took McKenzie down a track with an item resembling a knife and returned moments later without him but with what appeared to be blood “on the knife” which was held by Ennis. They repeated the same action with Whyte and then left the area. Cooper claimed he, under duress, withdrew money using Whyte’s card on two occasions. A few days later in the company of a relative, he reported the incident. Video footage showed Cooper and another man, said to be Ennis, at the banking machine.

Cooper subsequently pleaded guilty to the offences of conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to rob. On February 25, 2011, he was sentenced to eight years behind bars for those offences. He afterwards provided a statement to the police. That statement was the basis for his testimony in the case against Millings and Ennis. Both men have maintained their innocence.