He may be a lot of things, said accused Dario Orlando Taitt, but one thing he is not is a killer.
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“I might got a lot of tattoos all over my face. I might drink a little alcohol. I might drink a lot of alcohol. I might smoke some weed. I might deal with more than one woman at the same time. But what I don’t do, what I never do, is shoot nor kill nobody,” he said yesterday.
“I is a innocent man. I did not kill Jamal Clarke. I ain’t know who kill Jamal Clarke.”
The accused was giving his defence from the dock of the No 3 Supreme Court.
Taitt, alias ‘Red Dog’, 32, of Silver Sands, Christ Church, is accused of murdering Jamal Clarke, also of Silver Sands, on May 2, 2023.
He began his unsworn statement by telling the jury he “can’t tell wunna ‘bout what I don’t know about, so I will just tell wunna the truth”.
He recalled it was on April 23 when someone brought a cellphone to him and asked him to unlock it. He said he told the person he was no cellphone technician, placed it on a ledge and went back “breezing”.
The accused told the court a “couple days later” Jamal Clarke stopped by his tattoo shop and asked about the cellphone.
Taitt said when Clarke started quarrelling and damaged a television, he told himself “‘he gone back smoking cocaine’ so I ain’t really stress ‘bout it. I did feel a sorta way, but ‘cause I did feel a sorta way that don’t mean I did want to do he something”.
He continued Clarke left but returned later that day. He was still quarrelling. “He is who say he got he own gun and he ain’t got to get he brother gun. All I tell he is I ain’t know nothing ‘bout the phone.”
The accused said Clarke left and returned on another occasion. This time, said Taitt, Clarke was saying “I done kill already. I gine kill again”.
He said Clarke tore out the insect screen causing a customer in his tattoo shop to leave.
On May 2, said the accused, he decided to go by his uncle’s house and ink a tattoo there since “I tell myself I don’t know what ‘Bat Boy’ doing”.
Taitt told the court he spent “a good couple hours on the tattoo” before leaving St Philip.
“A day or two after that I hear my name call for killing ‘Bat Boy’. On May 5 me and my mother went to the doctor and get a doctor’s certificate. The next day, May 6, I went to the lawyer and the lawyer tell me he gine carry me in Monday.”
The accused said he was at his cousin’s house in Marchfield, St Philip, when he was awakened by a noise. When he looked outside, he saw two gunmen getting out of a jeep. Nothing, he added, indicated they were police.
“So automatically I tell myself that is the Bay Boys (Jamal and his twin brother Jamar) that come for me. So I run.”
He said he only realised they were lawmen when he was caught. One slapped him but when he told them he had been to a doctor and a lawyer, “nobody ain’t put their hand on me”.
He added he “cooperated fully” with police but “them done got it in them minds that them feel I do it”.
The accused told the jury he did not have any convictions or matters pending.
“All I ask is wunna look at the evidence, or lack of evidence, and give me a fair trial,” he concluded. (HLE)