While the prosecution had said that it was unable to locate a key witness to testify against Matthew Munroe who had spent the last five years on remand awaiting trial for the murder of schoolteacher Kescia Branche, his legal team has rejected this claim.
At a press conference yesterday morning, lead attorney Dexter Todd said that the State’s case against his client was purely circumstantial and really had nothing to do with any missing witness or witnesses.
On that point the attorney bemoaned the incidents of the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) instituting charges which cannot stand, and as he contends in the instant case, showed no connection by Munroe with the commission of the crime.
Todd, like his client, called for a reopening of the investigation, geared towards assisting the police in “cracking this murder.”
He said that every citizen has a responsibility to demand that all the organs of State work effectively, and that when someone is prosecuted, it is backed by “some form of credible evidence.”
The lawyer said that he is prepared to partner with the state to “better this system, because we have to take a stand because too many persons are placed before the courts without any evidence. So we just can’t allow this one to go.”
Meanwhile, for his part, Munroe who was discharged of the capital offence upon the direction of the trial judge last Tuesday, though lamenting the years he has been away from his family, said that he would like to see a fresh investigation launched into the young woman’s killing.
In tears he alleged being beaten by police to confess to the murder, which he said he never did.
He said that the lawmen took DNA samples from him and he was confident that he would ultimately be exonerated.
“But to date, the DNA never came in evidence. So I don’t know what happened there,” Munroe said.
Munroe said he remains aghast that he was charged for the murder, though the police had admitted finding no link between his car which he said they claimed to have been the murder weapon and the murder.
While emphasizing his innocence, and relief at being freed, the 52-year-old is urging investigators to launch a fresh probe into the woman’s killing, so that her family can have both closure and justice.
Unable to locate a witness who it said was key, the prosecution last week conceded failure in discharging its burden of proof by establishing a prima facie case against Munroe, which saw him being freed.
His trial had already gotten underway when the State made the disclosure.
In the circumstances, Justice Sandil Kissoon directed the jury to return a formal verdict of not guilty in favour of the former taxi driver, which saw him being discharged and cleared of the capital offence.
That State had built a circumstantial case against Munroe.
The indictment against him was that he murdered the 22-year-old Richard Ishmael Secondary School teacher on November 7th, 2017, at Georgetown.
Branche, a mother of one, was found unconscious and badly wounded on the morning of November 5th, 2017, along Cemetery Road, obliquely opposite the cemetery office, in Georgetown.
She succumbed to her injuries two days later while in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Georgetown Public Hospital.
An autopsy later revealed that she died as a result of brain haemorrhaging and blunt trauma to the brain.
