A court will today rule on whether a prima facie case has been made out against Deon Layne, who is on trial for possession of cocaine found in a bottle of SSS multi-vitamin tonic and which claimed the lives of four persons who ingested it.
The prosecution on Friday closed its case against Layne, 34, of HH Freeman Street, East La Penitence, who is charged with having 252 grammes of cocaine in his possession for the purpose of trafficking on May 2, 2014.
Layne is reported to have left the bottle of cocaine-laced tonic, which was originally due to be taken to the United States, at an East La Penitence home.
Magistrate Judy Latchman, who is presiding over the case at the Georgetown Magistrates’ Court Two, set today for her ruling on a no-case submission advanced by Layne. On Friday, Police Inspector Vishnu Hunt, for the prosecution, submitted that a prima facie case had been made out against Layne and asked the court to call on him to lead a defence.
Briefly reviewing the evidence, Hunt argued that the prosecution had established that, at the material time, the accused had possession, knowledge and control of the cocaine.
He reminded too that the testimony of none of the prosecution’s witnesses was discredited.
The prosecutor stressed that it was the same bottle of cocaine-laced SSS tonic which Layne had taken to East La Penitence to be given to Candacy McGarrell to take back to the United States, which Alex Blair, Simone Price, Jahaquel Blair and Natasha George later ingested, resulting in their deaths.
Recalling the testimony of the lone survivor of the ordeal, 12-year-old Jamal Waterman, the prosecutor emphasised that the child had stated it was the said bottle of tonic dropped off by Layne, which his now dead mother Simone Price had asked him to retrieve from a bedroom. The child said his mother administered some of the contents of the bottle to him, but he later spat it out and drank juice instead to rid himself of the numbing taste.
Another witness, Dane Duke, had also testified of being told by Alex Blair before he died that both he and Jamal had ingested a substance from the bottle.
The prosecutor advanced that the bottle dropped off by Layne was the same in which the illegal substance was later found. He asked the court to draw the inference that it was that and no other bottle of SSS tonic in dispute.
On the issue of Layne’s “control” of the drug, Hunt tried to suggest that the court view with suspicion the reason Layne would want to send SSS tonic to the United States, when it is a product that can be easily accessed and bought there as well.
Magistrate Latchman, however, enquired from the prosecutor whether that was a question he wanted the court to be concerned with, while noting that Guyanese take back a variety of items to the US which can also be easily accessed and bought there as well. The magistrate pointed to fried fish, dried shrimp, achar, cheese, plantain chips, chicken foot and tamarind balls as being among such items. “You would be surprised by the things people take back to the United States,” she noted.
Hunt smiled at the items listed by the magistrate and said he has been told that such products from Guyana taste better than those in the US. He subsequently withdrew his suggestion.
The prosecutor then asked the court to view with suspicion the fact that Layne, after dropping off the tonic to McGarrell at East La Penitence, never returned to properly inform her of alternative arrangements for the item to be collected by his reputed wife in the US. McGarrell had told him that they resided in different States.
Hunt advanced that the reason Layne did not return was because he knew the bottle contained the illegal substance.
Magistrate Latchman, however, posited that one may not have returned for a number of reasons, including that he may have forgotten to, or may have no longer wanted the tonic to be taken back and disregarded it. She also cautioned the prosecutor to remember that according to the testimony of his witnesses, the bottle was sealed and no evidence was led in the case to suggest that it was tampered with.
Layne, who is unrepresented by an attorney, maintained that he knew nothing about the charge levelled against him and declined to ask the prosecution questions at the close of its case.
After hearing the prosecution’s case, the magistrate set today for ruling on Layne’s no-case submission.
