Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
WELL KNOWN Matthews Lane resident, 48-year-old Donald 'Zekes' Phipps, was yesterday convicted of two counts of murder and could face the death penalty.
Presiding judge, Justice Marsh, has put off sentencing until April 20.
Phipps showed no signs of emotion when the verdicts were handed down in the Home Circuit Court. The 12-member jury, comprising five women and seven men, deliberated for two hours.
"We will be appealing," said Valerie Neita-Robertson, one of the five lawyers who represented Phipps at the in camera trial which began on March 6.
Phipps' supporters, who on several occasions gathered outside the courthouse, were not around yesterday. Members of the security forces, who maintained a strong presence in and around the courthouse, made sure that no spectators were in close proximity to the building. Soldiers with rifles at the ready stood guard on the roof of the car park behind the courthouse.
Garfield Williams, a farmer from St. Thomas, who was charged jointly with Phipps for the murders of Rodney Leroy Farquharson and Dayton Williams, of Bayshore Park, east Kingston, was freed last month.
NO EVIDENCE
Prosecutors Paula Llewellyn, Donald Bryan and Icolin Reid offered no evidence against Williams after the Crown closed its case last month.
The burnt bodies of the two men were discovered on April 15 last year in an open lot at Rose Lane, near to Matthews Lane, downtown Kingston.
The Crown relied on voice identification and scientific evidence to prove its case against Phipps. Three witnesses testified that when one of them dialled Farquharson's mobile phone on the night of April 14 last year, Phipps answered and said that was the last time they were going to hear Rodney's voice.
Phipps gave an unsworn statement from the dock in which he said Rodney was his friend and he did not murder the two men.
He called a witness who said he was present when the two men were fatally shot and Phipps was not there.
