A former lawman has testified that he was present when accused Winfield Nurse spoke to then Inspector David Griffith about pushing his granddaughter’s body over a cliff at Jackson, St Michael.
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Retired police officer Charles Layne was on the stand when the trial of Nurse, 80, of Accommodation Road, Bank Hall, St Michael, continued on Monday in Supreme Court No. 4A, where Justice Donna Babb-Agard presides.
He is accused of disposing of the body of 12-year-old Rasheeda Bascombe sometime between January 2, 2002 and May 30, 2013. He has denied the charge.
Under cross-examination, Layne said no body was found in the Jackson area the day he was there in 2013, although that could have been influenced by weather conditions, the time the search was done and the excavation taking place there at the time.
Kerri Headley, who lived next door to Nurse and his family at the time the girl went missing, recalled that on January 2, 2002, he and another person were in Nurse’s kitchen playing cards that evening. Rasheeda Bascombe was in the dining room on the phone when she told her sister Raquel: “I coming back.” That was the last time he heard or saw the girl, whom he considered “a little sister” because his mother helped to raise her.
In response to prosecutor Principal State Counsel Olivia Davis, Headley described Rasheeda as a “quiet, young girl whom you could ask to do anything”. Sometimes she said “no”, but would think about it and then do it, he added.
He remembered seeing accused Nurse in his yard that evening, but he left home later that night to go for a walk, which he did sometimes.
Station Sergeant Amito Pollard told the court he was attached to the Major Crimes Unit and was one of the officers who interviewed the accused electronically on July 28 and 29, 2020, before charging him with disposing of his granddaughter’s body on the latter date.
During cross-examination, Pollard was asked by defence attorney Lennox Miller whether he could produce a death certificate for Rasheeda Bascombe, or could say – as at today’s date – whether she was alive or dead. The witness said he could not, but based on Nurse’s confession to former Inspector Griffith, “I would assume she’s deceased at today’s date”.
“Do you have any concrete evidence to bring to substantiate that?” counsel asked.
“Yes,” Pollard replied. “The accused confessed to disposing of the body and she’s been missing since 2002, and it is now 2025.”
Asked whether as lead investigator he ever searched for Rasheeda’s body, Pollard said he had not.
He agreed that Nurse subsequently denied everything he said to him in his statement, but the lawman said it had no bearing on him, because an accused person had the right to deny anything.
Pollard said he did not come across any information suggesting the girl was seen by members of the public for months after she was supposedly missing. He agreed that no one ever told him they saw her with the accused either, since that date.
Questioned about whether Nurse had ever been charged with anything else and the outcome of it, the station sergeant said “yes” and that matter had been discontinued.
State Counsel Tito Holder is also appearing for the prosecution, while Marlon Miller is the second defence attorney.
The case continues today. (SD)
