PROSECUTION star witness Nellie Gittens, mother of the West Ruimveldt murder victim, 16-year-old Abigale Gittens, said yesterday that the teen once ran away with accused Paul Moore.
The woman was testifying at the trial before Justice William Jailal and a mixed jury at the Demerara Assizes.
Moore also known as Paul Bagot is indicted for the unlawful killing on September 30, 2004.
Gittens said that, after her daughter had gone with Moore that time, she found her, six months later, at Mocha, East Bank Demerara, from where she took her back to their West Ruimveldt, Georgetown home.
The witness told State Prosecutor Rhondel Weaver, who is associated with other State Counsel Shivani Balcharan, the accused used to come to her gate and call her daughter, with whom he had a relationship for about two years.
The woman said, however, that, up to when she died, the teenager was a student of St. John’s College in the city.
The witness was relating an incident involving her daughter and the accused when Defence Counsel Hukumchand objected to the evidence, on the ground that it would be more prejudicial than probative.
But the judge overruled the objection and Gittens continued that, after taking her daughter from the house at Mocha, she took her to Providence Police  Station, also on East Bank Demerara and, subsequently, to East La Penitence Police Station.
Witness said she also went to the Juvenile Section at Eve Leary, in the city, too, where her daughter was charged by the Police.
The case for the Prosecution, based on circumstantial evidence, is that Moore attacked and fatally stabbed the student on West Ruimveldt Front Road, causing her to die at Georgetown Public Hospital (GPH).
Government Pathologist Dr. Vivikanand Bridgemohan, who performed the post mortem examination on the deceased, testified that death was due to shock and haemorrhage, resulting from multiple stab wounds.
On the resumption yesterday, the Prosecution wanted to tender an alleged dying declaration, through the witness Gittens but it met with another objection from Hukumchand.
Consequently, Justice Ramlal started a voir dire (trial within a trial), in the absence of the jury, to determine the admissibility of the attestation.
The smaller trial is continuing.