Defendant bathed in bleach and vinegar witness
Murder accused Kevin Warner was seen bathing with Clorox bleach and vinegar the evening after Dekimo “Purple” Martin was killed, Supreme Court heard.Mr Warner, of Warwick Park Road, Warwick, is charged with 24-year-old Mr Martin’s premeditated murder on May 28 last year. He is also charged with carrying a firearm used to commit an indictable offence on the same date. The 21-year-old is represented by defence lawyers Kim Hollis QC and Elizabeth Christopher and has denied both charges.Earlier, the trial had heard from witnesses who said Mr Warner was the last person outside talking with Mr Martin minutes before the shots were fired.The victim’s sister Danielle Martin said she saw someone matching the description of the accused running from the scene.Yesterday the court heard from Charlita Campbell, a female acquaintance of Mr Warner’s, who said he arrived at her home the day of the shooting around 7.30pm. Mr Warner told her he needed to talk about something and asked the 35-year-old, who had met him in person a week earlier, if she had heard about the murder.Mr Warner allegedly told her: “They think I killed him.”Ms Campbell said: “I did respond. I said, ‘Who is they? Who thinks that you killed him?’ And he said the people that was at the residence.“I asked him, ‘Why would they think you killed him?’. He responded by saying because he was the last one to see [Mr Martin] alive.”The woman told the court the murder accused was crying and appeared to be hurting after losing his “close friend”.She said the defendant admitted to being at Mr Martin’s Somerset home that day “smoking a cigarette or a spliff”. She said he said they were “passing it back and forth”.“He said there was some type of get together going on at the house. Everybody he knew went inside and he left and he went to his brother’s house [before the shooting took place].”While at Ms Campbell’s home, Mr Warner made a few phone calls on her cell phone, the court heard. He also asked if he could get a bath, before he turned himself in to police.But the woman said she entered the bathroom and noticed “he wasn’t using soap” and was instead “pouring the vinegar on his skin”.“I also noticed that there was a bottle of Clorox [bleach] to his right without a top on,” she added. Ms Campbell told the court the defendant had asked her to “lie for him”, by telling police he had been at her house the time of the murder.“I told him, ‘If you was at your brother’s house why doesn’t your brother give you an alibi?’. He said he didn’t want to bring the heat to his brother’s house because he has drugs, money and guns on his property.”Ms Hollis asked the woman why she hadn’t told police that the accused had poured “corrosive materials” on himself until an interview in August.The lawyer claimed the woman was telling “untruths and embellishments” to distance herself from what had happened.Ms Campbell said she told the police at the first opportunity after getting advice from a lawyer. She also said she was giving evidence in the trial so Mr Martin’s family “could have closure”.Ms Campbell was charged last June with perverting the course of justice by providing police with a false alibi for Mr Warner.She was handed a sentence of two years’ imprisonment, suspended for two years, by Puisne Judge Carlisle Greaves last Friday.Ms Hollis suggested Ms Campbell had a motive for giving evidence in the trial and claimed she “hoped to gain something” or “didn’t want to go to jail”.But Ms Campbell told the court: “I am not going to jail for Kevin Warner or anyone else. [Lying to police] was something I was pulled into blindly and my family was destroyed because of it. I didn’t know Kevin personally, but he brought me into it, no one else.”American gun expert Dennis McGuire said markings on two bullets and three bullet cartridge cases found at the scene showed the firearm could be linked to past crimes on the Island including two previous shootings and one case after May 28 last year.DNA specialist Candy Zuleger, also from the US, told the court that Mr Warner was the major DNA donor found on a watch, driver’s licence and motorcycle tested in relation to the crime. All the items, which belonged to him, also showed a minor donor being a person named Gary Hollis.The case continues on Monday morning.