‘It didn’t call for this,’ witness recalls victim saying

Jacklyn Levius, who died after she was stabbed at Richard Ishmael School in 2005, had said after she was injured: “I didn’t do that lil schoolgirl nothing and look what she do. It didn’t call for this.”

This is according to prosecution witness, Omantra Grant, who testified on Thursday.

Grant said she was taking her mother, Joy Smith, to the school to investigate one of her younger sisters being picked on. She said she was driving and had planned on dropping off the now dead woman to the bus park, before going to the school.

However, she said, plans changed after her mother urged her to “hurry up and get to the school”.

Former Richard Ishmael student, Letitia Bowen, 17, is on trial for manslaughter before Justice Roxanne George-Wiltshire for the killing of Levius in November 2005. At the time of the incident, Bowen was 15 years old.

In her evidence-in-chief, Grant said Levius, Wanda Small and Small’s older sister, Lexie who all ended up at the school that day, were not supposed to be there. She said after her family received a phone call that one of her younger sisters was being picked on at the school they left Craig, East Bank Demerara to investigate the claim. The plan was that when they got to the city, three of the passengers in the car she was driving would be put off at the Route 42 bus park.

But when another phone call came as they were travelling and her mother urged her to hurry up, Grant said she proceeded to the school using the shortest route to get there. She recalled driving down the Houston by-pass and then proceeding east along Mandela Avenue all the way to Sheriff Street before cutting away into another street in the direction of the school.

But this bit of Grant’s evidence was challenged by Senior Counsel Bernard De Santos for the defence, who suggested that the witness did not use the shortest route to the school pointing out that she would have taken the straightest path after leaving the East Bank to the school. To this, the witness said no, adding that she drove where she knew. After another suggestion was put to her, Grant said she was not in a rush to get to Richard Ishmael School that day.

DeSantos further suggested that Grant never intended to drop off anyone since they had planned to go to the school as a group out to make trouble. Again, she said, no. He said it was a case of a group of adults against one small girl.

Grant told the jury that when she and the others arrived at the school only one person remained in the car. She said her mother, Joy Smith, went to the Head Teacher while she remained outside seated on a plant pot with Levius and another relative called Simone.

The witness said she had her head bowed and only raised it when Simone shouted, “Look da lil schoolgirl gat a knife.”

She recalled looking to where a large group of schoolchildren had gathered in the compound but did not see the accused. Grant said she never saw the accused that day but she ran to the scene after hearing the comment about the knife. She said Levius was standing in the crowd bleeding and holding her hand under her left breast. According to her, Levius turned to her and said, “I didn’t do that lil schoolgirl nothing and look what she do. It didn’t call for this.”

Grant then pulled Levius away but she said the injured woman wrestled away from her grip and went back into the crowd but she managed to snatch her again. She recalled walking Levius to the Head Teacher’s office but it was closed, so they went to the car and she drove her to the hospital.

On the way to the hospital, she said, Levius repeated that she did nothing to the little girl but that the girl injured her.

DeSantos asked Grant why she went to the school that day and the witness responded that she had to drop her mother there. When pressed as to why she went into the compound, she said, to follow her mother.

He put it to her that she was selectively giving evidence and not telling the court the truth about what happened that day. But Grant insisted that she was.

The defence counsel put it to Grant that Levius was attacking the accused that afternoon and when Levius broke away from her grip after she had been injured, it was to attack the accused another time. Grant said she did not see Levius attack the young woman before she got up and went over to the scene. However, she said, it was possible that Levius could have attacked the accused when she broke away from her.

State Counsel Ganesh Hira is presenting the state’s case in association with Dionne McCammon, while DeSantos is appearing for the accused in association with Pamela DeSantos.