A judge on Tuesday started the summing up in the trial of a man accused of a gun murder and a woman alleged to have hidden him after the killing.
The prosecution has alleged that George Orlando Senior, 36, shot and killed Divonte Hernandez on Sound Way, near the intersection of Shedden Road and Eastern Avenue.
Barnaby Jameson, for the prosecution, earlier in the trial told the court that it was the Crown’s contention that Senior was in a Honda Fit car that parked near the scene of the shooting, a car park, and that he got out, wearing a mask and a hoodie, and gunned Hernandez down.
But Senior insisted in court he was just the driver of the car and that he was transporting two men, known to him as ‘Skippa’ and ‘Cheese’, who were collecting debts.
He told the court earlier he had met the two as he did a drugs deal for $10,000 worth of ganja on the day of the killing and that the supplier, called ‘David’, had asked him to drive the pair as a favour.
He said that he did not know that the other two men had guns until after he had reluctantly agreed to drive them and that Skippa had got out of the Honda, walked the short distance to a car park and shot Hernandez.
Co-accused Bianca Vega, 34, who has a child with Senior, is charged with being an accessory after the fact by protecting Senior by hiding him in a flat and supplying him with food and clothes.
Justice Cheryll Richards told the jury that the argument from Senior’s counsel was that the defendant was too afraid for his own safety and the wellbeing of Vega and their child to go to the police.
She added that the two men known as Skippa and Cheese had warned Senior they had “connections” in the Cayman police and that they would know if he made a report.
Hernandez died on 29 Sept. 2023 after he suffered a single gunshot to his chest as he sat at a picnic table.
Vega’s defence counsel argued that she did not believe that Senior had committed the murder.
Richards also told the jury that they might want to consider that Senior had said in evidence that he had no “hostile view” of Hernandez.
She added that the jurors had to be convinced by Crown evidence that Vega was aware that Senior was the gunman to convict her of being an accessory.
The jury was told by Richards that the prosecution had to prove that Vega was sure that Senior had murdered Hernandez.
Richards added, “The prosecution must show that, because of the circumstances and because of what the defendant Ms. Vega saw or heard, the only reasonable belief was that Senior had done it.”
She said, “If Ms. Vega only thought he might have committed the murder, that would be only suspicion and would not be enough to prove that she believed he had done it.”
Richards added it was the jury’s duty to weigh the evidence against Senior, which was circumstantial, and his co-accused carefully.
She said the jury had to put aside any prejudices or sympathies they might have for anyone involved in the case.
Richards added, “It’s important you judge calmly, dispassionately and logically, based only on the evidence you have heard.”
She reminded the jury of evidence heard during the three-week trial that included a detailed account of how the Honda was tracked by CCTV as it travelled around Grand Cayman on the day of the killing, which included a stop near the murder scene.
Richards is expected to finish her summing-up on Wednesday and send the jury out to consider its verdict.
Hernandez was shot in the chest and, despite desperate efforts at the scene to save him by onlookers and later paramedics, he was pronounced dead by doctors at George Town Hospital after he was rushed there by ambulance.
The trial continues.
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