A lawyer for a man accused of a 2022 murder insisted to a jury that evidence presented in the case failed to link his client to the fatal shooting.

Nasaje Anderson, Aaron Perinchief, Jukai Burgess and QuaZori Brangman have denied murdering Letrae Doeman, who was shot dead in Flatts in the early hours of July 1, 2022.

The Crown argued during their Supreme Court trial that Mr Anderson pulled the trigger and Mr Brangman rode the motorcycle used in the deadly attack.

However, prosecutors alleged that Mr Anderson and Mr Burgess also played key roles in the murder plot both before and after the shooting.

Mark Pettingill, for Mr Burgess, told the court that the evidence against his client should leave the jury with “considerable doubts”.

He emphasised that for Mr Burgess to be convicted of murder, the Crown needed to prove his involvement with the murder plot before the fatal shooting took place.

“If you feel Mr Burgess did something after the murder but you can’t be sure that he did something before the murder with the intent to murder, then he is not guilty,” Mr Pettingill said.

Mr Pettingill said that there was no dispute that, when the murder took place, Mr Burgess was at home in St David’s because he was wearing an electronic monitoring device.

“Not on the scene, no gun in hand, not near the scene, not anywhere around it,” he said. “He was at home in St David’s.”

Mr Pettingill said that while a gang expert had claimed Mr Burgess was “associated” with an East End gang, the witness said that he did not have any interactions with Mr Burgess himself.

He added that there was no evidence to show that Mr Burgess had any issues with anyone — including Mr Doeman.

“You have never heard about Mr Burgess having a beef with anybody ever in any stage in this case,” he said. “Certainly not the victim. None whatsoever on his part. No evidence of that at all.”

Mr Pettingill said that none of the phone and Snapchat records associated with the case contained comments about gangs, guns or murder directly attributed to his client, and argued that there was insufficient evidence to prove that he was the one making comments that had been attributed to him.

He said there was no cell tower data to show the calls came from Mr Burgess’s home and three slightly different Snapchat addresses attributed to the defendant in different conversations.

He also suggested that the movements of the shooters indicated that they were in communication with someone shortly before the fatal shooting.

Mr Pettingill said that the shooter’s bike passed over Flatts Bridge, went down Harrington Sound Road and then turned around and returned to Flatts, where the killing took place.

“It would not be unreasonable to say that some one gave a message to the shooters to do a U-turn because the victim’s bike was behind them,” he said.

He added that if there was a contact, it was not recorded in any of the phone records associated with Mr Burgess.

Mr Pettingill urged the jury not to find Mr Burgess guilty by association and to consider the evidence against him separately from that against the other defendants.

The jury is expected to begin deliberations in the case next week.

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