DENVALYN Minott, the second witness in the murder trial of Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald and Oscar Barnes, on Friday laughed for a few seconds under cross-examination as he recounted certain events on the night Beachy Stout’s second wife, Tonia McDonald, was brutally murdered.

Minott, who is already serving a prison sentence of almost 20 years for being the contract killer in the July 20, 2020 murder of Tonia, has agreed to give evidence against Beachy Stout and Barnes.

Tonia’s partially burnt body was found on the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland, beside her razed motor car.

Beachy Stout, according to Minott, hired him to kill his wife and promised to give him $3 million for the job. Minott claimed that he received strict orders from Beachy Stout to stab her to death, and that he was to do it by himself. He told the court that he subcontracted the job to Barnes because he couldn’t do it himself.

While recounting the night of the murder, Minott said, “When I got to Sherwood Forest I told her I soon come, and then I come out of the car; I still loved her at the time. She asked where I was going leave her [but] I didn’t tell her that somebody was going to kill her.”

He added: “Mr Barnes stepped out of the car with one foot and then stepped in back. This was on the same side she was on,” the witness said before bursting out in laughter.

Beachy Stout’s attorney, Christopher Townsend, tried to ascertain from the witness if he found murder to be funny.

“Yes it is funny to me, if you call it that. I never kill a soul. He [Barnes] had the knife in his right hand and began to stab her. I don’t know how many stabs she get. I loved her, but I couldn’t do any better. She was the woman I loved,” he said.

Under intense questioning from Townsend, Minott insisted that he never told the police anything about two men standing over Tonia with guns in Sherwood Forest.

After the stabbing and injury Minott claimed that he then ran over to see if he could help Tonia. “I was crying at the time, and I hugged her. I didn’t save her because that was not the order I get.”

He told the court that shortly after he left the scene, in bloodied clothes, he saw a police vehicle travelling in his direction, and that he tried to stop the car but the driver did not stop.

Townsend pressed Minott about his knowledge of Tonia being in a relationship with a man who goes by the alias Dollar Coin, and whether he had an argument with her during which he told her that she was barefaced.

“We never had an argument, but I called her barefaced. She wasn’t killed on the same day when I told her she was barefaced,” said the witness.

The trial will continue on Monday.