Santa Cruz:
A 20-YEAR-OLD woman accused of murder after she is alleged to have stabbed her boyfriend to death last year, was on Wednesday offered bail in the sum of $500,000 during a preliminary hearing in the Santa Cruz Resident Magistrate's Court.
The case was committed to the next sitting of the St. Elizabeth Circuit Court which starts on June 28.
As a condition of bail, Patrice Brown of Newtown Housing Scheme in Black River, St. Elizabeth, was also ordered by Resident Magistrate Marlene Malahoo-Forte to report to the Black River police every Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m.
Odane Williams, a 21-year-old firefighter who was attached to the Black River Fire Department, died in the Black River Hospital after he was allegedly stabbed by Brown.
The court was told that at about 2:30 p.m. on November 17, 2003, Williams was seen by a next door neighbour running from the back of a house where he was living at West Street in New Town holding the left side of his chest.
One of three witnesses who testified at the hearing, Ms. Gerwin Griffiths, who lives close by, said she and her daughter were at home washing when they saw Williams staggering and calling out for help. "Bratto, Bratto mi get stab," Williams reportedly said.
The witness told the court that after she and her daughter, Princess Swaby, rushed to Williams' assistance, it was then she said she saw Brown on the verandah speaking on a cell phone and she asked her, "A who stab Odane?" Brown, she said answered, "A mi stab him."
Dr. Derrick Letford, Medical Officer for Health in the parish, who performed the autopsy on Williams' body the following day, November 18, told the court that death was as a result of shock from haemorrhage due to a wound to the heart.
Brown is being represented by Queen's Counsel Velma Hylton.
