Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter

The trial of 32-year-old Ralston Baker of Mountain View Avenue, St. Andrew, who is accused of strangling his 49-year-old common-law wife and dumping the body in a barrel in their apartment, began on Wednesday in the Home Circuit Court.

The Crown, represented by Donald Bryan, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, is alleging that between August 25 and August 27, 2003, Baker used a piece of electrical cord to strangle Carol Harrison Blair.

Baker allegedly bound the hands and feet and threw the body face down in a barrel in the apartment where they lived at 87A Mountain View Avenue. Clothes were placed on top of the body. The police held Baker two months later at a supermarket in Portmore, St. Catherine.

Foul Odour

The landlady, 89-year-old Lydia Dennis, testified before the 12-member jury that she smelled a foul odour on August 27, 2003, and called the police. She said she last saw Blair alive on August 25, 2003.

The landlady said she did not see Blair the next day and she asked Baker what had happened to her. Baker told her that Blair and her sister had gone to the country to look for their mother who was ill. She told Baker that "Carol never leave this house, without telling me where she is going," but Baker did not reply.

Dennis said later that day Baker's mother came to the premises and she saw Baker take out several parcels from the apartment and give to his mother. The mother placed them in a car which was parked at the gate. Dennis said that when the police came to the premises on August 27, 2003, she saw Baker leaving the premises through a gate at the back of the premises.

Mr. Justice Lloyd Hibbert is presiding at the trial. Baker is being represented by attorney-at-law Dianne Jobson.