A teenager accused of two murders told a jury he's innocent, and that he only admitted his guilt twice on tape out of fear of the real culprit.

Darronte Dill claimed he was at home asleep when Frederick Gilbert and Maxwell Brangman were stabbed to death in St. David's early on September 21, 2008. He told Supreme Court that Roger Lightbourne Sr. the man whose St. David's home he was staying at confessed to him the next day that he carried out the killings.

Dill, 19, from Pembroke, said he later made two sets of "false" admissions about being the culprit because Mr. Lightbourne Sr. told him to take the rap. He said he was scared of being killed himself if he didn't do so.

"I probably would have ended up like these two guys," he claimed, in a reference to the murder victims.

Dill claimed Mr. Lightbourne Sr. told him the day after the killings that he'd attacked the victims after going for a walk during the night and finding them asleep in a hut near the Black Horse Tavern.

Detailing what Mr. Lightbourne Sr. allegedly told him of the attack, he commented: "I just couldn't believe he was telling me something like this.

"At the time I thought he was just I don't want to say joking I thought he was just talking about a movie or something. It didn't seem real to me."

The jury has previously heard that Mr. Lightbourne Sr. and his son Roger Jr. were both arrested during the Police investigation, as well as Dill. Mr. Lightbourne Sr. told the Police that Dill was the real culprit, and volunteered to initiate a conversation with him in the Police cells about it.

During that conversation which was secretly taped by detectives hiding in the cell next door Dill told Mr. Lightbourne Sr. he carried out the murders along with Roger Lightbourne Jr. AKA "Mister". He said Mr. Lightbourne Sr. was at home asleep at the time.

The Police interviewed Dill on tape the following day and told him they knew about his cell confession. He then repeated it to them, but refused to name his accomplice.

However, defence lawyer Anesta Weeks QC put it to him yesterday: "The Crown's case is that you left the house to commit not just one murder but two. Is that true?" Dill replied: "That's not true."

Dill said the reason he gave Mr. Lightbourne Sr. an account of the killings during their cell conversation was because Mr. Lightbourne spoke to him "aggressively". He said he believed Mr. Lightbourne Sr. who he referred to as Big Daddy was instructing him to give that account to the Police.

"The way he was coming at me, the way he was putting things to me, was like he wanted me to say that I did it," he told the court. He said he had been on good terms with Mr. Lightbourne Sr. beforehand.

During his interview with the Police, Dill denied he was scared of the Lightbournes and denied he was taking the rap for anyone. One of the officers who participated in that interview, Detective Constable Windol Thorpe, told the jury earlier yesterday that Dill "didn't strike me as a person that was scared". However, Dill said in his evidence that he was indeed scared at the time.

Opening his cross-examination of the accused, prosecutor Carrington Mahoney said: "You agree that you're a man who knows how to tell lies, true?"–Dill a former CedarBridge Academy student agreed it was. He further agreed with the prosecutor that on his version of events, he lied both to Mr. Lightbourne and to the Police.

"Were you in the drama group at CedarBridge?" inquired Mr. Mahoney.

"I don't understand what you're talking about," replied Dill.

He denies murder and the case continues.