Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
A HOME Circuit Court jury has freed 39-year-old Norma Smith, vendor, of 29 Christopher Road, Kingston 14, who was accused of murdering the father of her four children.
The Crown led evidence at the trial which was presided over by Mr. Justice Basil Reid that on March 28, 2004, Smith stabbed 39-year-old electrician Donald Grant, of Bond Street, Kingston 14, in the chest.
Lisa Bailey, girlfriend of the deceased, said that on the day of the incident, the deceased knocked on her door and asked her to let him in. The accused came to her front door and hit the deceased with an object on his foot. Bailey said she had a machete in her hand and the deceased took the machete from her and chased Smith. The deceased returned sometime after and she noticed that he was bleeding from the chest.
HIT ON HIS FOOT
Cross-examined by attorneys-at-law Janet Nosworthy and Belinda Bryan who represented Smith, Bailey admitted that she had said at the preliminary inquiry that Smith hit the deceased on his foot.
Evidence was also given that Smith told policemen at the Denham Town Police Station that the deceased had beaten her that night. She tried to escape by walking him out. She had a knife with her and the deceased tried to take away the knife from her.
Detective Constable Kirk Palmer testified that Smith told him that a struggle developed between them and the deceased was injured. She said she was sorry he died and she did not intend to kill him.
Smith, in her defence, gave a history of severe beatings she received from the deceased. She said in one instance she was hospitalised for four to five days at the Kingston Public Hospital.
Smith said she went to Bailey's house at Race Course Lane, Kingston to ask Grant for maintenance money for the children. She said she took the deceased to the Family Court for maintenance but when he got the summons, he refused to take it. She told the court that the relationship between her and the deceased was "sweet at first" but turned sour after the birth of their first child in 1997.
