Judge, jury hear compelling story about love turned deadly

THE sad story of a relationship gone sour was told Justice Navindra Singh and a mixed jury at the Demerara Assizes on Friday by a teenage boy who said he witnessed ‘Queenie’ hug her lover then stab him at South Sophia.Tyrone Best, Queenie’s Barbadian lover, later died in hospital from a stab wound in the abdomen. Police investigations resulted in Tramangra Williams, called ‘Queenie’, being charged with murder.
The boy, an alleged eyewitness named Kenneth Webster, called ‘Tony’, told the judge and jury that ‘Queenie’ was his neighbour, and that he knew Best, who had been living with her at the time.
According to Webster, now 19, on December 27, 2008, when he was just 13 years old, he recalled, between 4 and 5pm, he and his father building a bathroom in the yard.
He said that as he looked out from the backyard, where he went to fetch water for his father to wash his hands, he saw Best standing by a ‘lantern-post’. He could see Best clearly, because nothing was blocking his view.
He then saw ‘Queenie’ coming out of her house, and, going to where Best was, hugged him with her left hand, while stabbing him in the right side of his chest with a brown-handle knife she was carrying. She then went back up her stairs and locked the door, Webster said.
Meanwhile, Best, who had a black jersey on his shoulder, placed the said garment on the wound, then walk up the stairs after ‘Queenie’.
On seeing this, Webster said, he hollered for his mother and told her what had transpired.
In answer to a question posed by the Prosecutrix, Mrs. Judith Mursalin, Webster said he and ‘Queenie’ never had any problem. But on cross-examination by Mr. Peter Hugh, he denied ever seeing Best pelt ‘Queenie’ with a shoe that day.
It was suggested to witness that ‘Queenie’ first came out of the house, and that Best followed her. But the witness denied the suggestion.
The witness, Wendy De Florimente, Kenneth’s mother, was next to testify.
She said that on December 27, she was at her home at ‘D’ Field, South Sophia, when her son, Kenneth, began shouting for her.
She said Kenneth told her what he saw. Upon looking out, she saw Best coming down the stairs. She also saw him going back up the stairs, and he was staggering.
She said that two days later, when she was leaving to go to Court, ‘Queenie’ called out to her and asked if she heard that Best had died.
Witness said, “I asked her what happened to him, and ‘Queenie’ replied, ‘Two boys stabbed him and robbed him of $20, 000.00.’”
During the first day of the trial, police witness, Singh, testified that the accused, ‘Queenie’, had told him in a statement that her boyfriend had left her at home to purchase cigarettes, when, suddenly, she heard him shouting from outside, at 605 ‘D’ Field, South Sophia, saying, “Queenie, come!“
Witness, Singh, said ‘Queenie’ told him that when she went outside, she saw her boyfriend, Tyrone Best, on his knees, holding his belly, and bleeding from a wound.
According to the constable, she said she enquired from Tyrone what had happened, and he explained that two men, whom he did not recognise, attacked and robbed him, and stabbed him in the abdomen.
The hearing continues.

(By George Barclay)