Duo admit to 2016 charges before the High Court

Two men have admitted to their roles in the unlawful disposal of a man’s body over five years ago.

They are Akil William McAllister Grant, of Blades Hill No.2, St Philip and Livardo Roghiles Hinds, of Durants, Lodge Road, Christ Church. Grant pleaded guilty to unlawfully disposing of Michael Mapp’s body between May 18 and 24, 2016.

Hinds admitted that without lawful authority or reasonable excuse he assisted in the burial of Mapp’s body with intent to impede the lawful apprehension or prosecution of Grant and another man.

Mapp’s body was discovered in a shallow grave in a canefield at Bayfield, St Philip. He was last seen by family and friends in the evening hours of May 18, 2016.

Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale told Justice Randall Worrell that a group of men from Mapp’s community found his body after he went missing.

Police investigations, the prosecutor said, led to Grant’s and Hinds’s arrest.

Under questioning by police, Grant revealed that he and another man were filling up cans with water and watering marijuana plants when Mapp, nicknamed Beaver, walked up to them. He said an argument ensued between Mapp and the other man. “I just humble myself,” he said.

Grant told police that the two continued to argue and the other man started shooting Beaver in the foot. Grant said he “ran out of the cane ground”.

The other man subsequently came after him and the two left and went to pick up Hinds, also known as Shots.

They returned to the scene and Grant said he went back watering the marijuana plants while the others dug a hole. But then the men subsequently requested his help.

Grant said he tore the shirt that he was wearing into strips and wrapped it around his hand, the other two men did the same with the pieces that he had handed to them so that they would not get their fingerprints on the body.

In a statement to police, Hinds said he was picked up by the other man and Grant. And they drove him to a field in St Philip. He said when he saw the dead man he told the other man “why you do that to me?” The other man told him that he only trusted him.

Hinds admitted in the statement that he helped drag Mapp’s body and placed it in the hole while Grant tossed the deceased’s cellphone into the grave as well.

An autopsy conducted on Mapp’s body found four gunshot wounds. Death was attributed to multiple gunshot wounds, some of which we discovered on his buttocks, leg and chest.

The sentencing phase of the men’s crime will come up again on August 6 before Supreme Court No. 2. Presentencing reports have been ordered on the duo.