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Cyclist discovered victim’s body on Railway Trail

Photo by Chris BurvilleIn this August 2007 file picture a uniformed police officer and another man move piles of branches and foliage on the Railway Trail in Devonshire where the body of Shaki Crockwell was discovered.

A Devonshire resident, two police officers and a nurse described the scene where Shaki Crockwell’s dead body was found.The first account was given by the local resident who found the body.His police statement was read to Supreme Court by prosecutor Maria Sofianos who obtained a reporting restriction from the judge, banning the man’s name from being published.The witness stated he was riding his pushbike along the Railway Trail on the night of August 24 2007 when he saw a body lying on the track.He shouted: “Hey bredren, you all right.” Then he went to a nearby home where he’d drunk a beer on his way down the trail, and asked the resident to call the police.The witness reported that he told them about the discovery and said of the victim: “He’s wearing a bulletproof vest.”However, the resident told him: “Hey, he could be strapped. You ain’t using my phone.” The man therefore used a payphone to dial 911 instead, waited until police cars came by, then rode his bike to Court Street to buy some beers. He later heard the victim was Mr Crockwell.Prosecutors allege that Derek Spalding murdered Mr Crockwell over an unpaid drug debt. He denies charges of premeditated murder and using a firearm to commit that crime.The next witness yesterday was Pc Mark Lewis, who arrived at the scene with a colleague. He told the jury the victim’s hooded top was zipped up to the neck, but his colleague pulled down the zipper to check for signs of life, which revealed a white bulletproof vest.The next statement read by Ms Sofianos was from an emergency room nurse who attended the scene along with an ambulance crew. Again, Ms Sofianos obtained a ban on the media reporting the nurse’s name.The nurse reported how the victim’s body was lying in a pool of blood and there were police officers at the scene. She checked for signs of life but did not find any.The next witness was Detective Sergeant Peter Thompson, an expert crime scene examiner. He told the jury how he seized various items from the scene and examined them for fingerprints and DNA evidence. He also took a gun shot residue swabs from the victim.The case continues.