The mother of both deceased Anthony Omar Layne and accused Jason Ricardo Layne testified to hearing loud noises outside her Leadvale, Christ Church shop shortly before being told that Anthony, also known as ‘Bubba’, had been shot.
Francina Layne gave evidence in the No. 3 Supreme Court before Justice Carlisle Greaves on the second day of the trial of the deceased’s brother Jason Ricardo Layne of Leadvale; Shawn Orlando Crookendale of Skeetes Road, St Michael; and Oshea Kai Greenidge of Ruby, St Philip.
The three men have pleaded not guilty to murdering Layne on June 4, 2020.
The mother told a jury of 11 women and one man that all her children, including Anthony, and Jason, had lived in Leadvale at the time. Anthony lived in an apartment she had built for him at the back of her home.
She told the court that Anthony had sold drugs for a living from the time he left secondary school and had been in trouble with police for doing so. Police had gone to his house about “three or four times” that she knew of.
The witness stated that Anthony “would always accuse me of calling the police for him”.
“He would rant, curse, skin my customers off the bench…I would tell him that it was the company you keep,” said the mother, a shopkeeper.
She testified that she called the police for him on several occasions when he was “misbehaving” and that he had her charged on one occasion.
“After that, I withdrew myself from Anthony,” she said.
She recalled that on June 4, customers were inside the shop and she was serving food when she heard the sounds outside.
“I hear this thing holler pax and pax. I was like, ‘I wonder wuh’s dat?’,” she testified, adding that a woman who was in the shop went outside.
“When she come back, she tell me Bubba get shoot. So I said: ‘I am not going out there at all’. I shut the shop and I shut down the food…
“I can’t tell you what happened outside because I never went outside.”
Jewel Alkins, the deceased’s father, also gave evidence. He told the court that he went to the supermarket that morning to shop when someone called and told him Anthony had been shot.
“When I got down there, the area was cordoned off by the police with caution tape so I waited, and when the police were finished, I went up there, and I see him on the ground. I fall down, and that was it.”
Alkins said he went to the morgue at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital on June 17, 2020 and identified Anthony’s body.
He described a close relationship with Anthony, saying they spoke regularly and he often visited him.
Acting Deputy Director Krystal Delaney and Acting Senior State Counsel Anastacia McMeo-Boyce are prosecuting the case. Senior Counsel Angella Mitchell-Gittens represents Greenidge; attorneys Lesley Cargil-Straker and Kristin Vanderpool represent Layne; and Crookendale is represented by attorneys Sade Harris and Elan Greenidge.
(JB)
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