–of Whim businessman’s murder
ELTON Haynes, called ‘Bush Bull’ or ‘Tan’, and Carlton Akeem Bourne, alias ‘Black Boy’, couldn’t believe their ears on Tuesday when the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
And this was after deliberating for just over two hours.
Not waiting to be told twice after Justice Sandil Kissoon said, “You are free to go,” the pair literally ran out of the Berbice Assizes courtroom, the shock still etched on their gaunt faces.
The particulars of the case is that Elton Haynes and Carlton Bourne, between November 6 and 7, 2012, allegedly murdered Winston Ragnauth, called ‘Tony’, in the furtherance of a burglary.
The state’s case, presented by Prosecutrix Ms Tuanna Hardy, was based mainly on the caution statement given by both of the accused.
In Haynes’ case, he reportedly said in his caution statement, as recorded by Detective Sergeant Lawrence Thomas, that on November 6, 2012, that he, Bourne and one Hanniff went to ‘Jimmy Shop’ at Liverpool Village, where they made plans to go to Whim and rob ‘Ragnauth Rum Shop’.
According to the statement, Haynes said: “At about 21:00hrs that night, we went into Ragnauth shop and stick him up before robbing him of foodstuff and cigarettes.
“I had a knife, and Ragnauth was fighting back. And I just tek the knife and cut he throat.”
Bourne, who was captured a year after the incident, reportedly told Detective Thomas in his attestation, which was also admitted into evidence, that after spending six months on remand for robbery with violence, he went to Jimmy’s shop where he met Haynes, whom he repeatedly referred to in the statement as ‘Tan’, and he told him he had something for them to do.
“I ask him what,” Bourne reportedly said in his statement. “And he said, ‘We guh rob this shop of a couple millions.’
“That night around midnight, meh pick up meh bike and met him at the shop. He break a part of the bond, and opened the front door. I entered the shop and saw the owner sleeping in a room.
“I started to search for money and gold.
‘Tan’ woke up the man who started to scream. I see ‘Tan’ tek a cutlass and chop de man on his neck.
“I ask him why he did so, and he responded, ‘He had to dead.’
“I got scared, collected two boxes of cigarettes and guh way. I tell my mother what happen, then I went to town. He found twenty something thousand dollars in a drawer.”
However, damning though the foregoing statements were, the men, in their unsworn statements from the dock, denied killing the businessman.
HE WAS FRAMED
Haynes alleged that he was framed by the investigating rank, Detective Sergeant Thomas, whom he has known for a while; they had both served in the Guyana Police Force, and he was known for doing such things.
Haynes also denied ever giving Thomas a caution statement, much less signing any such document. He argued that if a statement was indeed given, it would have been in his own handwriting, and not Thomas’s.
Haynes said that in late 2012 he was doing some construction work at Sophia, in Georgetown, when on November 11, 2012, he set out for Berbice after receiving a phone call from his mother.
He said that after dropping off some foodstuff at Paradise, in West Berbice, he travelled to Canje and later Liverpool.
He said that it was whilst walking in Liverpool with some relatives of his that he was picked up by the police.
Bourne, on the other hand, who hails from suburban East Ruimveldt, said from the dock that he had never known the co-accused before.
According to him, he was visiting an aunt in Berbice during 2012 when he was arrested by Emmanuel Ragnauth, son of the now deceased businessman, and slapped with a robbery-with-violence charge. For that, he said, he would spend the next six months on remand.
Then, in 2013, after being involved in a fight at Agricola and taken to the East Ruimveldt Police Outpost, he was told that he was wanted in Berbice.
Bourne said that during December 2013, he was transferred to the Whim Police Station,
where he met Detective Constable Ragnauth and Detective Sergeant Thomas, who questioned him about the murder.
He claimed that during the interrogation, he was repeatedly beaten in the abdomen by Thomas to confess to the crime.
