After 4 years on remand, 28 year-old Nicholas Swazo, is at home tonight after being acquitted of murder in a trial without jury for the shooting death
of 36 year-old Mennonite Businessman Wendell Reimer.
On October 7, 2011, the three men barged into Eagle One Hardware Store, located at mile 4 and a half on the Phillip Goldson Highway. One of the men was
armed, and that's when they held up the cashier, stole the money in the cash register and the gunman shot and killed the store-owner, Wendell Reimer.
Now, both Swazo and 25 year-old Ernest Staine, who was acquitted on last week Tuesday, are now free of the capital offence. As soon as Justice Adolph
Lucas finished delivering his written ruling, we spoke with Swazo's attorney outside of court about it:
Christelle Wilson- Attorney of Nicholas Swazo
"Nicholas Swazo is my client, he has been on remand for about 4 years for the murder of Mr. Wendellin Reimer who was the owner of the Eagle One
Hardware store; and today he walked out of the courtroom a free man acquitted of the charges or murder so we are very happy to have received that
result. They had actually charged 2 men with this crime of murder. One of the men was acquitted a little bit earlier in the trail, Ernest Staine; on
the grounds that they did not have any evidence to show that Ernest Staine had the mental intention or mens rea as we say in law to commit murder. But
what the prosecution claimed they had against my client was a surveillance footage taken from the Eagle One Hardware store; which they had a witness,
officer Jemmott who claimed that he was able to identify my client as being the person on the footage because he knew him for 15 plus years."
Daniel Ortiz
"Talk to us about how you defended your client against this charge."
Christelle Wilson- Attorney of Nicholas Swazo
"Well my client has always maintained to me that he could not have been at the scene, he always had an alibi defence; but because we had to tackle the
identification being put forward by the prosecution. We had to prove that officer Jemmott was not in a position to make a positive identification of
Nicholas Swazo. That is, there were conflicting evidence coming from Jemmott and the other prosecution witnesses that were brought to back up his
story; in that he did not actually know the client for the past 15 years and he did not see him as often as he said he would have seen him. So what the
defence put forward was that; for you to be able to make a positive identification on a surveillance footage of somebody you claim to know, you have to
be able to prove to the judge, to the jury, to the court that you actually really know that person and you've known them for some time that you cannot
be mistaken when you're making that identification. And as you heard from the judge, the prime witness, the person who has sealed the fate of the
defendant was not able to satisfy the judge that he would have been able to make a positive identification."
So where did the case fall apart? Well, the prosecution's evidence relied on video footage that was captured on a surveillance camera that was in the
store. Assistant Superintendent Henry Jemmott, who viewed the footage, testified that Swaso was the robber in the white t-shirt who, according to the
cashier, was the gunman that pursued Reimer before the gunshot were heard.
But in his ruling, Justice Lucas said that the images in the footage were not clear and that it would be unfair to convict an accused only on the
evidence of Jemmott and so he found Swaso not guilty.
Cashier, Carmelita Peck testified in the trial that one of the robbers shot her boss, while the other went into the cash register and took out all the
money that was in it, a mere $175 dollars.
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