Secret recordings to be played today
THE MURDER trial of popular Portland businessman Everton ‘Beachy Stout’ McDonald will today start hearing secretly recorded conversations that he reportedly had with the man whom he had allegedly contracted to murder his wife.
The partially burnt body of Tonia McDonald, a 32-year-old businesswoman, was found with the throat slashed and multiple stab wounds along a deserted main road in Sherwood Forest, Portland.
The contract killer, Denvalyn Minott, previously testified that he had lured Tonia, whom he claimed was his lover, to the area and watched as she was stabbed and killed by Oscar Barnes.
Minott, a 48-year-old fisherman who is currently serving a 19-year prison sentence for his role in the murder, also told the sevenmember jury that McDonald hired him to kill his wife for $3 million and that he subcontracted the hit to Barnes.
The businessman and Barnes, a newly married, 33-year-old St Mary tiler, are on trial for Tonia’s murder in the Home Circuit Court before Justice Chester Stamp.
Earlier during the trial, Minott, the prosecution’s main witness, had testified that he had used a navy-blue Samsung A31 cellular phone to secretly record about 120 conversations which he had captured on his phone. Minott said he gave the police the phone with the recordings when they raided his home on August 5, 2020.
The court also heard that he had saved them in a file called Vybz Kartel, as he wanted people to believe that the recordings were songs.
The phone on which the recordings were saved and 25 transcripts of the conversations have been tendered into evidence.
During yesterday’s proceedings, a DVD containing 38 audio files, three user accounts, and five photographs, all extracted from the phone by the expert witness, was tendered as an exhibit.
The prosecution’s final witness, a detective constable and computer forensic examination expert told the court that he burnt the DVD on May 12, 2021.
The witness also described preparing the report for the Samsung cellular phone containing two Digicel SIM cards and a Mirco SD card, which Minott said he used to record the conversations.
A grey and white Apple iPod, a ZTE cellular phone, and a Huawei cellular phone containing a Digicel SIM and an SD card were also analysed by the witness, the jury heard during his evidence-in-chief.
However, the expert in his evidence contradicted earlier testimony from Minott that he saved the recording in a file called Vybz Kartel.
According to the expert, after the phone was brought to Minott for him to open the device, a file “partially named” SIM1 was found with the voice recordings.
The detective constable will continue his evidence tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the prosecution has called 14 of its 25 witnesses. The rest of the witnesses were not called as the prosecution and the defence have agreed the statements.