By Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterA PROSECUTION WITNESS testified yesterday that on two occasions 45-year-old cable service operator Leacroft Livingston visited the guest
houses where the two men he is accused of murdering were staying and spoke with them.
Livingston and his wife Beverly are charged jointly with the murder of 18-year-old Robert Palmer, of Greater Portmore, St. Catherine and 19-year-old Craig Constable, of 90 Maxfield Avenue,
Kingston 13.
The Crown represented by Kathy Pyke, Assistant Director of Public Prosecutions, is leading evidence before the jury and Mr. Justice Mahadev Dukharan that between April 13 and 14, 1996, Constable and Palmer were murdered in the Livingstons' home at 7 Valentine Drive, St. Andrew. The bodies with several stab wounds were found at a precipice off the Rock Hall main road, St. Andrew on April 14, 1996.
Vanetta Graham testified in the Home Circuit Court that in April 1996, Constable was her boyfriend. Palmer and Constable were close friends. She said she knew Mr. Livingston as "Mr. Lee" and she had seen him before that night. She told the court that she saw Mr. Livingston at a guest house in Havendale, St. Andrew. Constable introduced Mr. Livingston to her as his uncle. Mr. Livingston's wife also came to the guest house and was introduced to her as Beverly.
GUEST HOUSE
The next time she saw Mr. Livingston was at a guest house on Mountain View Avenue, St. Andrew. She said she and Constable along with Palmer and his girlfriend Paula were spending the night at the guest house. Mr. Livingston came to that guesthouse. When Mr. Livingston came he and the two deceased were in one of the two rooms they occupied. She and Puala were in the other room and they became curious. They put their ears to the wall but could not hear anything. Graham said Constable never used to work but he had money frequently. Paulette Fearon-Walters, a corrections officer, said Palmer was her son. She said about 11 a.m. on Saturday April 13, 1996 she was at home when someone called Palmer and said that the boss was outside. She followed him outside to see who it was and she saw the Livingstons sitting in a car. She said her son spoke to them through the car window and she went back inside.
The Livingstons left and the witness said later that evening, Palmer and Constable left the house. While she was at work the Monday she heard that the men had died. She said Detective Sergeant Sterling came for her the same day and she went to the Red Hills Police Station. After that she went to the Livingston's home where she saw them standing by the gate. She said Graham and the mother of Palmer's child went with her to the Livingstons' home. They all travelled in a taxi.
The taxi driver introduced her as "Rohan's mother" and Mr. Livingston said her son used to call him Daddy. She asked him what happened to the picture and he told her he got a passport for her son. She told him to give her the passport since her son was dead but Mr. Livingston said he could not give her the passport because he paid a lot of money for it.
The witness said she did not know why the taxi driver took her to the Livingstons' home. She said Mrs. Livingston was very angry with the taxi driver.
Under cross-examination by attorney-at-law Bert Samuels, she said Vanetta and Paula told her after Palmer died that a man was looking about his (Palmer) papers to go abroad. She denied telling the police in a statement that several times she saw Mr. Livingston come on her avenue with the two deceased. The police statement was shown to her and she admitted seeing that in the statement. She said the first time she saw Mr. Livingston was on April 13, 1996.
It was suggested to her that some of the things she said in the police statement were not true. The witness said it was seven years and she could not remember everything. She disagreed with the suggestion that the two accused did not go to her house on April 13, 1996.
Norma Linton , Q.C. who represents Mrs. Livingston suggested to the witness that Mrs. Livingston was not angry with the taxi driver but she said Mrs. Livingston was talking in a very aggressive way.
