After spending almost six years as a remanded prisoner, 45-year-old Regan Rodrigues was on Wednesday found not guilty of the March 10, 2015 murder of Courtney Crum-Ewing, who was gunned down at Third Avenue, Diamond, East Bank Demerara.
Rodrigues, also known as “Grey Boy”, had been on trial for the offence before Justice Sandil Kissoon and a 12-member jury at the High Court in Demerara. Following close of the prosecution’s case, which was presented by State Counsels Lisa Cave and Tyra Bakker, Rodrigues’s lawyer, Adrian Thompson, submitted that there was no case to answer, and Justice Kissoon upheld the submission.
In the circumstances, the judge instructed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty, after which he discharged the accused and told him he was free to go.
Dead: Courtney Crum-Ewing
At the announcement of the verdict, Rodrigues, who appeared in court virtually from the Lusignan Prison, burst into tears as he stood and thanked the judge and jury. Following the commencement of his trial on Monday, Rodrigues had pleaded not guilty to the murder charge.
According to reports, 40-year-old Crum-Ewing, a father of three, was gunned down while he was encouraging residents in the area to vote at the May 2015 General and Regional Elections.
It was reported that Crum-Ewing’s motionless body was found with gunshot wounds to the temple, back of the head, and stomach. The Police, in a statement, had said the political activist was accosted by four men in a car, one of whom discharged several rounds that hit him about the body. It was reported that the killer(s) used a .32 pistol to execute him.
Gun, ammo find
Police Sergeant Dwayne Harvey, who was among the witness called by the Prosecution, testified that on July 13, 2015, he and a party of Police ranks searched Rodrigues’s home at Riverview, Ruimveldt, Georgetown, where they discovered narcotics, and an illegal gun and several rounds of ammunition.
According to Sergeant Harvey, Rodrigues was told by a rank that he was being arrested for possession of illegal arms and ammunition, and was subsequently cautioned, to which he replied, “Officer give me a chance nah! I can’t turn in this gun, this gun do nuff things.”
The Police witness recounted that Rodrigues was arrested and escorted out of the house, during which he pushed the arresting rank aside, jumped into the Demerara River, and made good his escape. Harvey said a rank gave chase behind Rodrigues, but was unable to apprehend him.
Sergeant Harvey added that the arresting rank took possession of the illegal gun and ammunition, and took them to the Ruimveldt Police Station, where they were lodged and the necessary records made.
Deficient, tenuous
In upholding Thompson’s no-case submission, Justice Kissoon described the evidence adduced by the prosecution as “deficient” and “tenuous”. Justice Kissoon noted that the effect of the evidence presented by the prosecution is that ballistics tests connected the gun found in Rodrigues’s home as the weapon that had inflicted the fatal injuries on Crum-Ewing.
According to Justice Kissoon, although Rodrigues was charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition, those charges were dismissed by a competent court of jurisdiction, the Magistrates’ Courts.
The Judge said that, based on the evidence presented before him, the Police witnesses testified that they prepared their statements pursuant to Rodrigues’s arrest for unlawful possession of arms and ammo.
“The State was seeking to establish that he had possession and control of the weapon. Because this is the plank of the state’s case, that this weapon is the property of [Rodrigues], and being the property of the accused, it then had to have been the accused, based on circumstantial evidence, as the owner of that weapon, who would have shot the deceased on the 10th March 2015.”
In conclusion, Justice Kissoon underscored, “after reviewing the entirety of the evidence before this court, I find that the State has failed to establish a prima facie case against the accused for the offence of murder…. There is absolutely no evidence before this court that is capable of establishing the elements of the offence of murder. The evidence as adduced by the State, the court finds, separate and apart from being deficient, was tenuous and does not, as a matter of law, establish the sufficiency of the evidence to call upon the accused to lead a defence.”
Previously discharged
Following his arrest for Crum-Ewing’s murder in 2015, Rodrigues was charged. On two occasions he was discharged by Principal Magistrate Judy Latchman, who, at the conclusion of a Preliminary Inquiry (PI) in 2017, held that there was insufficient evidence to commit him to stand trial for the offence at the High Court.
A few days later, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Shalimar Ali-Hack, SC, ordered Magistrate Latchman to reopen the PI to facilitate additional evidence from Police witnesses, and to rule on the voluntariness of oral statements purportedly given to detectives by Rodrigues.
The Magistrate complied with the DPP’s directive, and after doing so, ruled again that there was no evidence against Rodrigues to put him on trial. As such, the Magistrate discharged Rodrigues for the second time. But following the discharge, the DPP issued a letter to Magistrate Latchman, instructing her to commit Rodrigues to stand trial in the High Court.
However, Magistrate Latchman had underscored that while the DPP is of the “opinion” that there is evidence against Rodrigues for the indictable offence, her court maintains there is no evidence against Rodrigues in relation to the murder committed on Crum-Ewing. The Magistrate then discharged Rodrigues again. But the Police had refused to release him from custody.
The DPP then commenced proceedings in the High Court in which she advanced, among other things, that the Magistrate had exceeded her authority in refusing to comply with her instructions to commit Rodrigues to trial.
The DPP had sought other orders directing the Magistrate to show why she should not be compelled and directed to reopen the PI as directed, and make the committal.
In January 2018, Justice of Appeal Dawn Gregory denied Magistrate Latchman’s request to stay a ruling by High Court Justice Brassington Reynolds to commit Rodrigues to stand trial for murder. Consequently, the Magistrate was compelled to make the committal.
Magistrate Latchman has appealed the ruling by Justice Reynolds. The matter is yet to be called at the Guyana Court of Appeal.
Convictions
In October 2017, Rodrigues was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment after he was found guilty of threatening Crum-Ewing’s mother, Donna Harcourt. The Court heard that on August 12, 2017, at Regent and Alexander Streets, Georgetown, he threatened the woman.
Prior to this, he was also sentenced to three years’ imprisonment after he was found guilty by a city Magistrate of escaping from Police custody. (G1)
