Eion Collins, who is on trial for the attempted murder of a taxi driver, yesterday told Justice James Bovell-Drakes and a jury that he felt like “Satan” had taken possession of him at the time he allegedly committed the crime.
Collins was at the time leading his defence, which he opted to do in unsworn testimony from the prisoners’ dock.
The allegation against him is that on January 27, 2014 at Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo, he wounded Joel Mc Curdy, with intent to murder him. He has also been alternatively indicted for felonious wounding, for which it is alleged that he wounded Mc Curdy, with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, maim, disfigure or disable him.
In his account to the court, the unrepresented Collins described his awareness during the altercation with McCurdy as being sporadic.
According to him, he was in the interior days before and was bitten by a snake. He said he was initially treated at the Mahdia Hospital and subsequently journeyed to Parika, where he spent four days. Sometime after then, Collins said he travelled to Georgetown, where he was treated for the bite at the Woodlands Hospital.
After leaving the hospital on the night in question, Collins said he was at a car park, where the complainant enquired whether he was travelling and he eventually decided to hire him to go to Parika.
During the journey, the accused said, he started felling unwell, “and when a ketch mehself, me and this man (Mc Curdy) deh in a scramble.”
Collins, who could not account for what caused the scuffle or what transpired during the altercation, added that sometimes he was aware and at other times he was not.
According to him, he again momentarily did not know what was happening, “and after ketching back mehself again,” Collins said he noticed cuts to his hands and feet.
He said he then saw a crowd around him as he lay on the ground, and after coming to his senses, he awaited the arrival of the police, who, drove him “all about.”
Collins then told Justice Bovell-Drakes, “when the snake bite me, I was not feeling like myself anymore, like something gone over me.”
According to the accused, “the poison (from the snake bite) was working in and coming out,” through the cuts he had. Collins said too that his skin had gotten blue.
He said that after the poison had left his body and the discoloration had faded away, “my head was just speeding, like I can’t even explain it.”
Collins then proceeded to tell the court that he had gone to the park to get a bus and was not in his right senses. He then declared, “if he (McCurdy) din come up to me and de lef me fuh guh me way and ketch me bus, nothing like duh won’t a happen to me nor he.”
“I feel like Satan come into me,” the accused added.
Collins called his sister Wanda, whose last name he did not know, to testify on his behalf.
The accused declared that his sister knew nothing regarding the incident for which he was charged, except for the snake bite he had informed her of.
Once his sister, who give her name as Wanda Collins, entered the witness box, the accused told her, “tell them bout de snake bite wah ah get.”
The woman said that she received a call from her brother after he came to Georgetown, informing her about the snake bite he had sustained. She said that an X-Ray was done on him at the hospital.
After his sister’s testimony, Collins informed that he had no more witnesses to call.
It is the state’s case that on the day in question, the accused boarded the complainant’s car and asked to be taken to Parika.
While in the vicinity of Tuschen, Prosecutor Tuanna Hardy had previously related, the accused asked McCurdy to turn into a street and whipped out a knife and dealt the man a stab to his left chest.
She noted that a scuffle then ensued between the two, as the accused attempted to get away with McCurdy’s car.
Hardy said that public-spirited citizens then intervened, and the complainant was rushed to the hospital, where he underwent two surgeries.
The doctor who performed the operations on McCurdy had testified that without the emergency surgeries, he could have died.
Collins’ trial will continue on December 19 at 9.15am at the High Court in Georgetown, when the judge will sum-up the case and hand it over to the jury for deliberation, and the possible return of a verdict.
