The jury in the triple murder trial against Avie Howell and Kaniel Martin yesterday heard evidence which placed the accused in the vicinity of the scene and around the time that British couple Benjamin and Dr Catherine Mullany were gunned down on July 27, 2008, at Cocos Hotel, south of the island.
Though the session was brief, the prosecution squeezed in four witnesses, three of whom gave direct evidence about records of calls being made to and from the Howell’s family cellular phone, and one call that was made from Martin’s cellular phone to the Howell’s phone on the day of the incident.
Kenroy Bennett, an employee of APUA, told the court that on July 27, five calls were registered at the Boggy Peak Cell Site, south of the island between 2:09 am and 3:37 pm.
One of the calls was made from a landline to Howell’s cellular phone, while another was made from Martin to Howell and a third was made from the Air Traffic Control line to Howell’s phone. Those, and other calls to the Howell’s family phone registered at the cell site in the Boggy Peak area.
Then there were two calls from the Howell’s line to a number whose owner has not yet been disclosed in evidence. Those calls registered at the Scott’s Hill cell site. They were made around 9 pm, on July 27.
Another Digicel worker, Kem Hughes told the jury the GSM technology the company uses has a range of 35 kilometres, which means a call is registered at a cell site when it is accepted within that range.
APUA Telephone (PCS) worker, Francois Sutton testified to examining records of calls made from the Air Traffic Control line to several numbers in July, before and after the Mullanys were murdered.
Most of the calls were made to the Howell’s family phone the day after the murder. They were very brief and were made between short spaces of time. Sutton said the caller might have gotten a voicemail.
At the time of the murders, Howell’s girlfriend, Georgette Aaron worked at the airport as a secretary and ran errands for the Air Traffic Control Department.
Meantime, Dr Cecil Phillip told the court that on the morning of August 9, 2008, at about 4:30 am he went to the scene where Woneta Anderson was found dead in her home in Browne’s Avenue and found rigor mortis had already set in. He said based on the stage the body was in, Anderson had to have been dead for more than four hours.
Howell and Martin are also accused of that killing and are on trial for it as well as for the killing of the British couple.
At the start of the case, the Director of Public Prosecution Anthony Armstrong said the prosecution would be relying on phone records, documentary evidence, direct evidence, DNA, circumstantial and other types of evidence in order to prove the case since there were no eyewitness accounts of what transpired when the persons were murdered.
