MICHAEL MCLEAN TRIAL Accused admits he had cutting implements on day of killing

MICHAEL MCLEAN, the man on trial for killing four children and two women, has admitted that on the day of the slayings, he took a 12-inch knife, a chopper, a machete, a pitch fork, and a hoe from his home and placed them in his motor car. McLean, however, explained that an area close to the restaurant he operated in Mo rant Bay, St Thomas, was flooded, and he needed the implements to clear the area.

His testimony, which came in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston yesterday, is in stark contrast to the evidence of one of his employees, who said that there was no rainfall or flooding that day.

“Do you recall [former employee] saying he did not recall any work being done that day?” lead prosecutor Paula Llewellyn questioned during a sometime-testy crossexamination.

“It was raining that day. You could check the weather forecast,” McLean replied.

The businessman is on trial for killing his former girlfriend, TerryAnn Mohammed; her son, Jessie O’Gilvie; as well as her niece, Patrice Martin-McCool, and her children, Lloyd McCool, Jihad McCool, and Sean Chin in St Thomas in February 2006.

Mohammed’s badly burnt body was found in bushes in the community of Needham Pen, while the bodies of Patrice Martin-McCool and her children were found with their throats slashed in bushes near Prospect Beach in the parish. The decomposing body of the other vic tim, six-year-old Jihad McCool, was found in a shallow grave in St Mary one week later.

McLean testified that all four children were like his own but admitted that Jihad was his “sweetheart”.

“She is the one who, if I come home at 9 o’clock at night, she would wait up to eat dinner with me,” he said, triggering an exchange with Llewellyn.

“I am suggesting to you that it was because she was your heartbeat why you couldn’t slash her throat?” the prosecutor asked.

“No, Madam,” he replied quietly.

“I am going to suggest to you that it was you who smothered her?” Llewellyn pressed.

“No, Madam,” he again replied. The trial continues today.