Barbara Gayle, Staff ReporterTHE COURT of Appeal has ordered that a prisoner who confessed to his cellmate that he had raped and killed his neighbour must be hanged for the crime.
Michael Prince, labourer, of Mount Ararat, St. Ann, was convicted on October 30, 1998 of capital murder. He was sentenced to death.
He was charged with the murder of Kevan Davidson, a singer, of Mount Ararat. Davidson's body with the throat cut was found on the morning of June 10, 1996 at the side of a gully which was about five chains from her house.
Carrington Mahoney, Acting Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions told the court that Prince was linked to the crime in two ways. First, by an admission that he made to a fellow cellmate at the Runaway Bay Police Station and secondly, by the results of DNA tests.
In the conversation with the cellmate, Prince said he had served time for raping and robbing Davidson. He said on the night of June 9, 1996, he saw her in a bar in the district. He went home changed his clothes and when he heard her singing, coming along the road, he covered her mouth, pulled her into the gully and after raping her used a machete to cut her throat. When the body was discovered the next morning, Prince said he went to view the body "like everybody else." He told his cellmate that he would not be found out as he had taken care of everything.
Dr. Yvonne Cruickshank, government analyst conducted DNA analysis and found that Prince was involved in the commission of the murder and rape.
Prince had appealed on the ground that Mr. Justice Howard Cooke erred in law when he told the jury it was not necessary for him to remind them of the mechanism of the testing of the DNA evidence.
The Court of Appeal comprising Mr. Justice Henderson Downer, Mr. Justice Clarence Walker and Mr. Justice Seymour Panton, dismissed the appeal and held that the judge gave proper directions and there was evidence to support the conviction.
