Murder victim found with multiple wounds and knife in hand

Gregory Adams was found lying on his back with a knife in his hand and multiple wounds to his body in the backyard of a St Michael home, the No. 4 Supreme Court heard.

Former police sergeant Azel Skeete, who was one of the first officers to arrive on the scene at Lower Bridge Gap, Cave Hill, St Michael on October 18, 2020, recalled seeing Adams’ body in the enclosed yard of a wooden house.

He told the court: “The male was lying on his back. He was wearing a multi-coloured short pants. The body had several wounds about it. There was a white handled knife in the right hand, a sword with green tape around it near the body, [and] what appeared to be a blood stain at the right side of the body. This body was motionless. I also observed what appeared to be blood stains leading from the interior of the house into the yard.”

Skeete said that Dr Andrew Murray examined the body and pronounced death at 7:47 a.m.

Meanwhile, Emergency Medical Technician Derrick Cumberbatch testified that he and a colleague had responded to a call around 6:18 a.m. but found no signs of life and informed police officers upon their arrival.

Shieana Geoffroy, sister of the accused, also gave evidence. She testified that on the morning of the incident, her mother woke her at the residence — where they lived with her sister and her mother’s boyfriend, Adams – and told her that Adams had slapped her and forced her to get out of the car in which they were travelling, and she had to walk a long way before someone picked her up.

The witness stated that their mother then woke her brother and repeated the story to him, and an argument began between them and Adams, who denied any wrongdoing. Geoffroy said a fight broke out between her mother and Adams, and her brother stepped in “to defend her”.

“The fight escalated and started inside the house, and then they ended up outside in the backyard,” she further testified. “I was inside the house while they were in the backyard, so I could not see what happened out there. I was taking care of my sister as she had woken up, and I didn’t want her to see the fight. By the time I got back outside, (Adams) was already on the ground. He was gasping for air, and my mother told me to call the ambulance, which I did, and I called the police also,” she said.

Asked by Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Aliston Seale SC if she saw any wounds on Adams, she said she had not gone fully into the yard but saw a white-handled knife in his hand and there was “a lot of blood”.

Under cross-examination by defence attorney Sian Lange, Geoffroy said Adams made threatening remarks during the argument, including “I gine deal with you the way Pointer deal with you”, referring to her mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend who had burned down her house.

“It felt like (Adams) was threatening to either kill us or burn the house down,” she said.

She recounted that her mother began throwing bottles at Adams, who went into his bedroom, returned with a white-handled knife and moved toward them. Geoffroy said she tried to stop him, but he pushed past her, charging towards her mother and brother who had nothing in their hands, and she went into her sister’s bedroom.

About five minutes later, she returned to find her mother applying pressure to Adams’ wounds as he lay on the ground, and her brother sitting by the door “in a daze”.

Geoffroy told the court she believed lives were in danger that morning, recalling “past aggressions against my brother”. She spoke about an incident in May 2020 when Adams had allegedly charged at her brother with the same white-handled knife.

“He charged towards my brother, and I would have gotten in the middle of that also…. Eventually, my mother and I would have gotten him to calm down, and my brother would have left the house that day,” she told the court.

However, she admitted that incident was never reported to the police.