Woman guilty of murdering fish vendor, wounding his partner

A 26-year-old St James woman has been convicted of murdering a fish vendor and wounding his partner, after a two-month trial in the No. 4 Supreme Court.

Romancia Odwin wiped the tears from her face as she left the dock of the No. 4 Supreme Court in the custody of prison officials after a jury unanimously convicted her of murdering 56-year-old Ronald Smokey Skeete between July 18 and 19, 2020.  

Odwin, 26, of Whopping, Orange Hill, St James, was also found guilty of unlawfully wounding Zonelle Sobers with intent to maim, disfigure or disable her.  

The 12-member jury of ten women and two men delivered the verdicts following Justice Laurie-Anne Smith-Bovell’s summation of the almost two-month-long trial.  

Acting Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC and State Counsel Paul Prescod prosecuted the case, while defence attorney Sade Harris represented Odwin.  

Sobers testified in court that she had been suspicious of the relationship between Skeete and Odwin, had searched his phone, found “plenty” messages between the two and questioned him about them but he told her she was “imagining things”. 

In her statement to police, she admitted that she had forwarded some of those conversations to her own phone, with “Romancia asking Smokey to book apartments for both of them, asking him to buy food and for money on numerous occasions and mostly sexual acts they performed on each other and favours that they wanted from each other”.  

Sobers recounted that after returning home from work, Odwin came to the house twice, asking for Skeete and she told her on both occasions that he was occupied, and Odwin left.  

She then finished her washing and fell asleep in the back bedroom, but was later awoken during the night by a sound from the front bedroom.  

Sobers said: “When I pushed the bedroom door, I saw Romancia over Skeete stabbing. He was on the ground. Blood was on the ground, and caused me to fall down along with Romancia…. I holler: ‘Romancia, wuh you doing, girl?’ And she stabbed at me. I get that at the right side of my ear. So I grab at her hand, but being that she taller than me, I get another one in my head.”  

Seeing that Skeete was not moving, she ran out of the bedroom towards the door, and Odwin stabbed her in the back near her right shoulder.  

Sobers said she kicked Odwin, ran through the door and down to the accused’s house, where she saw men playing dominoes, one of whom was Odwin’s father, and shouted, “Romancia up dey stabbing up Skeete. Go and see what going on.”  

Sobers spent several days at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital with injuries that left her with nerve damage and the inability to walk properly. “I am medically unfit, could hardly work and just here,” she told the court. 

Giving an unsworn statement from the dock, Odwin said she was acting in self-defence that night and had never intended to harm anyone.  

She stated that Skeete began touching her sexually when she was 16 and would offer her 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 losing her job, Odwin said they would arrange to meet up, stating that she hid this from her relatives.  

She said that over time Skeete became “a demanding, aggressive person”, who began stalking her and would wait in his garage naked for her to pass his house.  

She stated that on the night of the incident, she left home with the intention of speaking to Skeete and “getting money owed to me” and he approached her with a knife and prevented her from leaving his house after she refused his sexual demands.  

A struggle began, according to her account, when she picked up the knife he had dropped and recalled “one stab” before she swung the knife at him after he grabbed her.  

During this time, Sobers entered and “attacked” her, Odwin said.  

She continued: “I just swung at [Sobers]. 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.”  

“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.” 

Pathologist Dr Stephen Jones ruled that Skeete’s death was caused by multiple stab wounds resulting in haemorrhage and shock.  

Ordering pre-sentence and psychological reports, Justice Smith-Bovell remanded Odwin into custody and adjourned the case until May 29, when the sentencing phase will begin.

(JB)