A 46-year-old Jamaican taxi driver has been convicted of the murder of Michelle Coudray-Greaves, the daughter of Local Government Minister Marlene Coudray.The guilty verdict from a 12-member jury in the St James Circuit Court comes almost exactly two years after the schoolteacher's charred remains were found in a canefield near Montego Bay .
Coudray-Greaves, 39, was due to start a teaching job at Cornwall College, Montego Bay, before she went missing after returning from a trip to Trinidad on June 2, 2012. Among the witnesses who testified during her 17-day trial before High Court Judge Courtney Daye was Minister Coudray, who told the court she flew to Jamaica in June 2012 and assisted in identifying the remains.
"I saw the charred remains on a cot and I saw the fingers on which there was a ring and I told the doctor that that was her ring. There were braces on the teeth, both top and bottom, and I told the doctor that, from what I had seen, it appeared to be the remains of my daughter," Coudray said.
Coudray has since taken custody of her daughter's three children. Several calls were made to her cellphone for comment on the verdict yesterday evening, but they all went to voicemail.
According to a report in the Jamaica Gleaner published yesterday evening after the verdict, prosecutors relied mainly on circumstantial evidence in the case.
"Cell site analysis on the night Coudray-Greave went missing placed Taylor near the location where the body was found," the report said.The report also said two civilian witnesses, one of them a farmer, testified they saw Taylor's taxi leaving the area where the body of Coudray-Greaves was found. The forensic pathologist Dr Murari Saranji, who performed the autopsy on her body, revealed she died of blunt force trauma to the head.
An unsworn statement from Taylor, in which he denied any involvement in the killing, was also presented during the trial, which began late last month.Taylor's trial was not free from controversy, as in the preliminary stages, his attorney had complained on several occasions that police had improperly interviewed him while he was on remand awaiting trial.The case was also stalled briefly after an orthodontist, who presented Coudray-Greaves' dental records initially refused to testify.
Taylor was represented by defence attorney Trevor Ho Lyn while Maxine Jackson, led the prosecution's team in the trial.
Taylor is expected to be sentenced on July 23.