MISS JUSTICE Kay Beckford began summing up to the jury yesterday at the trial of the three persons who are charged with murdering Shirley Playfair, 60-year-old attorney-at-law.
The judge told the jurors that they were the sole judges of the facts. She advised them that their function was to decide on the facts whether the three accused were guilty or not guilty. She said they should come to their decision based only on the evidence they had heard while sitting in the jury box.
Evidence was given at the trial, which began on March 17, that on April 13, 2000, Mrs. Playfair was in her office at Seymour Park, 2 Seymour Avenue, Kingston 10, having lunch, when two men went there and slashed her throat. The men were held in a taxi on Metcalfe Road, Kingston 13, about 45 minutes later.
The accused are: Ramone Drysdale, 26, of Metcalfe Road, Ashley Ricketts, 50, of 44A Maxfield Ave-nue, Kingston 13, and Annette Living-ston, 42, of Buff Bay, Portland. Livingston was Mrs. Playfair's secretary for 17 years, up to the time of the murder.
Dwayne "Amin" Williams, 26, of Metcalfe Road, was charged with the murder but he escaped from custody on April 22 last year.
Attorney-at-law Sylvester Morris who is representing Drysdale asked the jury to bear in mind that the two soldiers who were with the police on Metcalfe Road when the men were held, had testified that they did not see the police take any knife from Drysdale. Mr. Morris said it was not "logic" that because Drysdale was found in the car on Metcalfe Road that he was at the murder scene. Also he said that no fingerprint was taken from the knife. He said the jury should analyse the evidence of the witness who said she saw Drysdale at the office and dismiss
that evidence. He described the knife which the police said they took from Drysdale as a "mystery" and pointed out that the soldiers had said the police removed only one knife from a wall.
In addressing the jury, attorney-at-law George Soutar, who is representing Ricketts, said that the Crown did not establish that Ricketts was part of a plan to murder Mrs. Playfair. He said Ricketts was someone who assisted the police. He asked the jury to look at Ricketts's cautioned statements and see if there was any plan to commit murder. He told the jurors that they should acquit Ricketts because he was not part of a common design to murder anyone.
The judge will continue her summation to the jury when the trial resumes today in the Home Circuit Court, King Street, downtown Kingston.
