After two previous trials ended in hung juries, a third sealed the fate of Cyon Collier, called ‘Picture Boy,’ who was yesterday sentenced to death by hanging for the 2006 murders of Victoria brothers Ray Walcott and Carl Andrews, after jurors returned unanimous guilty verdicts.
Collier’s fate was read to him by Justice Priya Sewnarine-Beharry, after the 12-member jury had deliberated for some three hours. The case was prosecuted by Narissa Leander and Tuanna Hardy.
“Thank you, Jesus!” a relative of the deceased declared from the back of the court, after the declaration of the verdicts.
Collier, given the opportunity to speak once the verdicts were announced, responded, “Ma’am, I don’t know how the jury could arrive at such a verdict.” He then proceeded to ask the court’s mercy, while mentioning the length of time he had spent imprisoned.
But even after claiming innocence, he went on to offer apologies to the relatives of the deceased, to whom he muttered, “I beg your forgiveness.”
His exit from the courtroom was anything but solemn as he gave a thumbs-up to his relatives on the way out.
Collier was on trial for the fatal shootings of Walcott, called ‘Sugar,’ and his younger brother, Andrews, called ‘Alo,’ in the village of Victoria, East Coast Demerara in September, 2006. He has been represented by attorney Lyndon Amsterdam since being charged in the same year.
Collier was committed to stand trial in 2007 and in 2012, after six hours of deliberation, only eight of the 12 jurors had found him guilty of the offences at the conclusion of his first trial. The next year, the second hung jury reported to Justice Navindra Singh that the decision was split evenly among the members, with six having found him to be innocent of the crimes.
During his trial before Justice Singh, Collier proclaimed his innocence, having declared that he was imprisoned for a crime he knew nothing about. The defendant claimed then that he had never used a gun, much less an AK-47 rifle, which was used in the slaying of the brothers.
The prosecution’s facts stated that on the day of the shooting, the brothers were standing at the corner of a road watching a game of dominoes when Collier, dressed in black clothing and with a gun slung across his back, rode up on a motorcycle, talked with them and allegedly started shooting.
Last month, Sherwin Maxwell appear-ed at the High Court as a witness to the event and he testified to seeing Collier arrive on a motorbike at the scene about half an hour before the shooting occurred, dismount the bike and enter a nearby yard.
Gunshots half hour later caused the group he was with to run for cover, after which time he learnt of the deaths of the brothers. Under cross-examination by Amsterdam, however, Maxwell accepted the suggestion that he did not know who the shooter was.
