Friends and family of Alexis Smith celebrate after Basil Black is found guilty of the 15-year-old’s murder. Photo: Vandyke Hepburn

By DENISE MAYCOCK

Tribune Freeport Reporter

A MAN was found guilty yesterday of murdering his 15-year-old girlfriend Alexis Smith, who was shot to death outside a sports bar in Eight Mile Rock two years ago. A Supreme Court jury deliberated for about an hour and a half before returning around 5pm on Tuesday with the unanimous 12-0 verdict.

Basil Black, 35, who stutters, represented himself at trial and denied killing Smith. He has claimed that he was framed. A sentencing hearing is set for 9:30am on Thursday in the Supreme Court.

Smith was at the Platinum Sports Bar with Black and some friends on March 29, 2014 and in the early morning hours of March 30 when she was shot in the head.

Before the jury retired around 3pm, Justice Estelle Gray Evans during her summation told jurors that before they can convict the accused of murder, they must be satisfied that he intentionally caused the death of the 15-year-old. She noted that the prosecution had brought three eyewitnesses, who gave evidence that they saw Black, in the early hours of March 30, pull a silver gun from his pocket and shoot Smith in the back of the head.

The witnesses all testified that they knew Black.

Justice Evans also noted that Dr. Mandy Pedican, who performed the autopsy, told of severe injuries that Smith had sustained from a gunshot to the head. She removed a projectile from the victim’s head and noted that due to the severity of a laceration and haemorrhage in the brain, Smith could not have survived for very long after being shot.

During Justice Evans’ summation, it was noted that the three prosecution eyewitnesses had also identified Black in a police photo line-up as the shooter after he had refused to participate in a police ID parade. Three separate photo line-ups were conducted with Black’s photo placed in different positions among a line-up of 12 individuals.

“You must be satisfied that the photo line-up was fair,” she told jurors.

She also noted that Black had tested positive for gunpowder residue on his hands. The samples were sent to a lab in San Antonio, Texas, where an expert conducted the test. The expert gave video evidence in court from Texas, and concluded that the residue found on the defendant meant that the accused had either discharged a firearm, had handled a gun that was fired, or had been in close proximity of one.

Justice Evans told the jurors that the accused had claimed that when police officers arrested him at his residence in Pinedale, EMR, they took him in bushes in Holmes Rock where they gun butted him in the back and the gun accidentally discharged and that’s how he got gun residue on his hands.

There was also evidence that while in prison Black had contacted a friend, Joshua Demeritte, and told him where he had hidden the gun and asked him to retrieve it and sell it.

While attempting to sell the gun, police arrested Mr Demeritte. The gun was sent to a forensic lab where it was tested. The projectile removed from Smith’s skull, compared with one that police had fired from the gun matched, and it had been determined that the gun was used to kill the teen. A cell phone had also been retrieved by prison officers from a jail cell that was occupied by Black and others. However, Black denied having used a cell phone to call or text anyone, adding that the prison had installed cell phone jamming system.

Erica Kemp and Olivia Blatch of the Office of the Attorney General appeared on behalf of the Crown.

Basil Black

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