Witness recounts murder of JUTC chairman

A MURDER convict-turned-Crown witness yesterday detailed how he and other men executed the plan orchestrated by accused Tesha Miller to kill then chairman of the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC), Douglas Chambers.

Yesterday, the court heard that Chambers’ murder was a contract killing.

The witness, who has been incarcerated at a maximum-security prison for the last two years on a murder conviction, testified that at a meeting that took place the day before Chambers’ shooting death, Miller instructed him and other men to create a diversion after the killing had been carried out.

On the evening of the incident, the witness said that he and other men stood at a stall across from the JUTC depot in Spanish Town, St Catherine, waiting for Chambers to emerge from the building.

He told the court that while there, Andre Bryan, otherwise called ‘Blackman’, and another man identified only as ‘Brucky’, arrived in a motor vehicle.

The witness, who cannot be named because of a court order, said that Chambers eventually came out of the building and went to the entrance of the depot, where he was having a cigarette.

He testified that Bryan, who was clad in a black pullover with his face concealed, and ‘Brucky’ alighted from the vehicle, opening fire and hitting Chambers.

According to the witness, he and at least three other men fired shots in the air to stop people from running towards the scene, allowing the men to get back into the vehicle and escape.

On the morning of the incident, the witness told the court that he was instructed by Miller to retrieve two guns and hand them to Bryan.

The witness said that Bryan was accompanied by ‘Brucky’.

According to the witness, he then went for another gun, which he placed in his waistband, and then went to meet with the other men.

Meanwhile, the witness told the court that he has not seen Bryan since the day of the shooting.

He told the court that when he asked Miller for Bryan’s whereabouts, he was told that he had been sent on a boat to The Cayman Islands.

Miller is on trial for accessory before and after the fact to Chambers’ murder at the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston.

The trial continues today.

RICARDO MAKYN/CHIEF PHOTO EDITOR A policewoman cordons off the entrance to the now-defunct fishing village off the Portmore toll road in St Catherine, where the body of an unidentified woman was discovered yesterday. The parish of St Catherine, which has been under a state of emergency since September 5, recorded 183 murders up to November 9 this year, 15 more than in 2018.