Accused murderer Donna Vasyli returned to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services on Tuesday afternoon as a result of the Crown’s intention to appeal a judge’s decision to grant her $200,000 bail ahead of her trial. Her lawyer, Elliot Lockhart, QC, and her children urged her to remain strong as she was led back to a holding cell to await transport to the prison.

Prosecutors say Vasyli stabbed her husband, well-known Australian podiatrist Phillip Vasyli, in the neck at their home in the exclusive Old Fort Bay community on March 24. She was charged with his murder on March 30.

Senior Justice Stephen Isaacs, who has heard two previous bail applications for Vasyli, granted $200,000 bail with two sureties on the condition that she reports to the Lyford Cay Police Station on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays before 6 p.m., surrenders her passport to the court, resides at Ocean Drive in Old Fort Bay for the duration of her trial and wears an ankle bracelet.

Justice Bernard Turner delivered the decision for Isaacs, who is ill. Vasyli’s latest bail application was made because of her failing health. In his ruling, Isaacs noted a steady rise in Vasyli’s blood pressure. On April 15, it was 100/77 and on June 12, it was 182/116.

He said, “Although the respondent has sworn generally that the applicant’s high blood pressure and hypothyroidism can be controlled at the Princess Margaret Hospital, the blood pressure progression seems to reveal the opposite.

“I am unable to take any firm view of the progression of the applicant’s hypothyroidism, save as to note that the appellant seems to have developed small nodules in her neck, which I expect are not naturally occurring.”

Isaacs said, "Whether she appears for her trial may have seemed a difficult question on her first or second bail hearing, days and weeks after her arrest respectively, but there is much more gravamen to the applicant's assertion that she will, including the fact that she has family, two homes and a business in The Bahamas.

“Additionally, as her case has taken on a certain notoriety it appears in her home country of Australia, as well as in America, I expect as she has a son that lives in Florida, those countries I assume would not welcome her before her trial is disposed of; having no antecedents there is no reason to think that she will be a danger to society while at large."

Isaacs also observed that Vasyli had become "much thinner" than when he first saw her. He said, "It would be a blight on our prosecutorial system were she reduced to a chronic state of ill health. Death while in custody always results in a national spectacle; in this case it would result in an international one."

Turner will rule at 3 p.m. today on whether the notice of an intention to appeal serves as an automatic suspension of bail and whether the provision of the Bail Act is constitutional.

Lockhart argued that Vasyli’s release ahead of the hearing of the appeal “would not render the appeal nugatory”. He said she would technically remain in custody as she would be under constant surveillance by the electionic monitoring center. Lockhart said the only difference was that she would be sleeping at Old Fort Bay, rather than on concrete at the prison.

Nail Brathwaite, the prosecutor, said that it was a mandatory provision of the Bail Act that bail is suspended until the determination of an appeal.