Orange Hill murder trial: Odwin claims self-defence

Romancia Odwin, accused of murdering fish vendor Ronald Smokey Skeete and wounding another woman, told the Supreme Court she never intended to kill or harm anyone and was acting in self-defence during a confrontation in 2020.

“It was never my intention to kill him or harm Zonelle. I was only defending myself,” Odwin said from the dock as her trial continued on Wednesday.

She has denied murdering Ronald Skeete, 56, and unlawfully wounding Zonelle Sobers and the lesser charge of unlawfully and maliciously wounding her, all between July 18 and 19, 2020.  

Opting to make an unsworn statement from the dock before Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell and a 12-member jury in the No. 4 Supreme Court, Odwin, 26, of Whopping, Orange Hill, St James, recalled that a relationship between her and Skeete, her neighbour, began when she was 16. As she passed by his house through a track to get home, he would touch her sexually, she said.

Odwin testified: “Eventually, it became physical by the time I was 16 years old. It was like he was waiting until I was of age to have sex with me. Ronald would bring food, he would offer me money and hair in exchange for sex. I was never comfortable because I was a teenager and he was a man of my parents’ age, but I went along with it because I needed the money…I was unemployed at the time, and I was asking my father, and sometimes he would not give me, or sometimes he would not have it to give, so Ronald was the one giving.”

After she lost her job, she added Skeete’s number to her phone and they would often arrange to meet for sex, Odwin said. 

“I was ashamed. I felt dirty. I hid it from my friends and family members,” she said, adding that both of her parents suspected something, but she denied it.

The sexual encounters were always painful and Skeete became “a demanding, aggressive person”, who over time began stalking her, she told the court.

“He would wait in his garage naked, waiting for me to pass. After netball, he would be outside stalking me because he and my father had the same vehicle, and no one knew the difference in how it looked.”

The accused stated that on the night of the incident, she left home with the intention of speaking to Skeete and “getting money owed to me”. 

“When I got there, and I went in, Ronald approached me with a knife, and I was trying to speak with him, talking him out of the things he wanted to do,” she recalled, saying that she refused his sexual demands.

“He was becoming angry and would not allow me to leave. He had locked the door when I entered the bedroom. We started to scuffle, and his knife dropped. I picked it up and tried to fend him off. He kept coming at me, and I can recall one stab and then I tried to unlock the door to leave to run for help. He grabbed onto me, and I just swung the knife. I don’t know if it actually injured him. I did not want to kill him. I wanted him to stop attacking me so that I could leave.”

She told the court that Skeete struck her with a wardrobe door, which had fallen off during their scuffle, when Sobers entered and “attacked me”.

Odwin said: “I just swung at her. My intentions were not to harm her. At this point, I was defending myself. I was fearful for my life as it was two against one. That’s when all of us fell and I hit my head. They eventually left.” 

“After my fall, I waited a few minutes before I could get up and leave the house because I was afraid they would attack me again. I wasn’t sure where they had gone.” 

“When I got home, that’s when I saw Zonelle there. I made no advances towards her. Me and Zonelle have no issues. I did not know what to do. I felt uncomfortable, lost and uneasy, so I took a bath, and the remainder of the night was a blur.”

Odwin stated that she could not remember everything she did that night or what she told police, adding that she had never been in trouble before. She recalled being in pain and taking the medication prescribed by a doctor and those for her epileptic seizures.

“I was crying all the time,” she said. “I was very emotional, very lost as to what happened. I was ashamed and very, very disgusted that I was involved with Ronald at the time. I was still naive, small-minded, controlled and pressured. When I reflect on this situation, I was a young girl taken advantage of by this older man.”

Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC and State Counsel Paul Prescod are prosecuting the case, while Sade Harris represents Odwin.