CHRISTOPHER Townsend, one of four attorneys representing Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald in his murder trial, painted a picture of Denvalyn Minott, the second witness in the case, as a criminal who is willing to tell lies on even his closest relatives whenever it is convenient for him.

Beachy Stout, a very popular businessman in Portland and his co-accused, Oscar Barnes, are facing trial for the July 20, 2020 murder of Tonia McDonald, the second wife of Beachy Stout.

Tonia’s burnt body and motor vehicle were later found on the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland.

Townsend told the court that Minott gave three statements to the police following the murder of Beachy Stout’s second wife and then admitted that he lied in one of them. The witness admitted during cross-examination on Thursday that he didn’t know whether it was the first, second, or third statement that he had lied on.

Townsend probed whether Minott saw himself as a thief and a murderer who at times would pull his machete at people in a threatening way and who, from time to time, would shoot people with his fish gun.

According to Minott, although he is currently serving a sentence of almost 20 years in prison for the murder of Tonia, he doesn’t consider himself a murderer. Townsend ventured into a line of questioning that showed that Minott was convicted previously for stealing.

“I am a convicted thief,” the witness admitted later.

Townsend asked Minott whether he was aware that his son gave a statement to the police describing him as a community don, but the witness said he was unaware and denied being a don.

“I have not been a criminal all my life. I am aware my son gave the police a statement, but I am not an area don and I wasn’t aware my son calling me an area don,” the witness said, disputing the argument that he chops up people from time to time and loved to reach for his machete.

At the same time, he admitted that he has shot people before using a fishing gun after Townsend quizzed him about a particular case in which he was arrested and charged for shooting a man by the name of “Jimmy” with a fish gun. He also asked Minott whether it was true that on the day the trial was to start in that case Jimmy went missing and the matter was subsequently thrown out. Minott agreed that was the truth.

Townsend also accused the witness of telling a series of lies since he was arrested in 2020.

Minott, however, denied that he spoke about the Beachy Stout case to cellmates at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre in Kingston and that the case was tried amongst inmates in the jail before it went before the court.

During his testimony earlier in the trial, the witness told the court that he met and spoke to Beachy Stout for the first time when he went to the businessman’s wholesale in search of a job. He said that when he approached Beachy Stout and told him that he needed a job at the establishment, the businessman allegedly told him that he had better work for him and brought him upstairs to his office in a supermarket he owned.

Minott alleged that Beachy Stout took out his phone and showed him a photograph of a woman and then told him that he wanted her dead and that he would pay him $3 million to kill her.

In a twist on Thursday, Minott said during cross-examination that on the first occasion when he met Beachy Stout there was no proposal for the murder of Tonia. He also said on Thursday that his wife and daughter had accompanied him to Beachy Stout’s supermarket on the day he previously said he met him for the first time. That information, he failed to mention in court prior to cross-examination.

“It was not in the first conversation that he asked me to kill his wife,” Minott said Thursday.

Other attorneys representing Beachy Stout are Earl Hamilton, Courtney Rowe, and John Jacobs. Ernest Davies is representing Barnes.

The trial was adjourned until October 23.