Witness maintains gangster wanted to drink blood from skull

THE SELF-CONFESSED member of the One Don Gang yesterday dismissed a suggestion that he had fabricated a story about an alleged gang member’s desire to drink blood from a skull because he wanted to spark sensation in the media.

The prosecution’s second witness during his evidence-in-chief in the ongoing Clansman Gang trial in the Home Circuit Court had testified that defendant Joseph McDermott, alias ‘Papa’, had told him that he wanted to exhume the skull of one of his victims so that he can use it to drink blood.

The witness had explained that McDermott had given him that explanation after he saw him and another alleged gang member – defendant Andre Golding, alias Raetae Blacks – cursing over the plan to dig up the remains of the man who they had reportedly murdered.

REPORT IN MEDIA ON SAME DAY

But yesterday during her crossexamination of the witness, McDermott’ lawyer, Sasha- Gaye Shaw, questioned the accuracy of the witness’s testimony, while enquiring from him whether he had seen a similar report in the media that day.

“Is it not coincidence that on the same day that there was news that somebody drink blood out of goat head that you say Papa drink blood out a skull?” she asked.

But the witness said he did not understand her question.

“Did you not see the news that morning that somebody drink blood out of goat head? Didn’t you see that when you were browsing social media?” she then asked.

“When I leave court, Ma’am,” the witness answered.

But the lawyer told the witness that she did not believe him.

“I am suggesting to you that when you say that conversation happen at Shelter Rock that you are lying and you’re making it up to cause a fuss or sensation in the media,” she said.

The witness, however, maintained that he was being truthful.

He, however, agreed that he did not tell the police about that conversation in his statement.

The witness, during further crossexamination, denied a suggestion from Shaw that he first met her client in 2014 when he started growing his dreadlocks and did not see him again until 2019.

“I didn’t see him in 2014. I didn’t know him in 2014,” said the witness, who has maintained that he joined the gang in 2016.

Shaw further suggested that the witness was lying about the evidence that he had given about her client being a member of the gang and taking part in criminal activities, but the witness disagreed.

Pointing to the witness’ evidence in which he had told the court that Papa had given him a bottle with ammunition when he and an undercover policeman went to pick up one of the gang’s guns on Jones Avenue, she suggested to the witness that he had framed her client.

“You set dem up,” Shaw charged, but her claim was rejected by the witness.

The prosecution’s second witness had testified that he had secretly worked with the police to seize a handgun and a rifle from the gang. The court heard that the witness had handed over both guns to the police at different times.

Reputed One Don Gang leader Andre ‘Blackman’ Bryan and 32 other alleged gang members are being tried on an indictment with 25 counts under the Criminal Justice (Suppression of Criminal Organizations) Act and the Firearms Act.

The One Don Gang is a breakaway faction of the Clansman Gang.

The trial will resume in the Home Circuit Court on Monday.