A United States-based woman on Thursday testified that before she ended a vacation in Guyana, she was approached by accused drug trafficker Deon Layne to deliver SSS tonic and other items to his girlfriend in the United States.
Candace McGarrell said she left the items behind and the tonic, which had been laced with cocaine, later ended up claiming the lives of four persons, including a child, who ingested it.
Testifying from the United States via Skype, McGarrell, who had been returning to the United States after a two weeks’ vacation at her sister’s Lot 22 East La Penitence home, told the court of Magistrate Judy Latchman that the bottle containing the tonic was sealed along with the packages of plantain chips, chicken foot and herbs.
McGarrell said that the packaged was given to her by Layne, who had asked her to deliver it to his girlfriend who lives in Queens, New York. She clearly identified Layne, whom she said she knew since he was a baby.
She recalled that she told Layne at the time that the items which he was sending were available in Queens and she questioned whether his girlfriend was willing to wait a very long time for her at the JFK airport, since she didn’t live in the same state.
She said Layne subsequently left to make a phone call to his girlfriend at an internet café but never returned.
When McGarrell was asked why she left behind the items, she questioned, “Where am I taking the package? And to whom? Where it going?”
She noted that no address was given to her, nor a name of the person who would collect the items.
Layne, when asked whether he had any questions for the witness, put forward to McGarrell that she and her family were known drug traffickers. At that point, Magistrate Latchman interrupted him and rendered the query irrelevant. Layne, 34, of HH Freeman Street, East La Penitence, is accused of having had 252 grammes of cocaine in his possession for the purpose of trafficking, on May 2 at Lot 22 Cocorite Street, East La Penitence
It is the police’s case that Layne went to the house, where McGarrell had been staying during her visit from the United States and asked her to take the tonic back to that country. Police said McGarrell did not take the cocaine-laced tonic with her when she returned to the US and instead the occupants of the house all drank the tonic and fell ill. Simone Price, Alex Blair and their child Jahaquel Blair as well as a neighbour, Natasha George, succumbed as a result of the poisoning. 12-year-old Jamal Waterman was also poisoned but survived.
The trial will continue on November 14 before Magistrate Latchman.
