Forde not guilty of 2014 murder

Akeem Jamar Forde has been acquitted of murder.

A jury of 11 women and one man took just over an hour and a half to deliberate before arriving at the not-guilty verdict on Tuesday evening in the No. 3 Supreme Court.

Forde, 30, of Pleasant Hall Housing Area, St Matthias, Christ Church, was charged with fatally shooting Torian Cleveland Earl, 21, of 10th Avenue New Orleans, St Michael on January 28, 2014, at Kensington New Road in the same parish.

Principal State Counsel Neville Watson and State Counsel Treann Knight prosecuted the matter, while Senior Counsel Michael Lashley and attorneys Justin Leacock and Kellyanne Blackman represented the accused.

After the verdict was delivered, Justice Carlisle Greaves, who presided over the trial, informed Forde he was free to go.

The court was told that Earl and several friends had left a strip club in Fontabelle and were walking through Kensington New Road around 4 a.m with another group behind them.

They went through a track towards the Chapman Lane pasture when a man in a black hoodie and pants appeared from the side of a house along the track, walked up to Earl and shot him once in the head before running off.