Cop says Taylor admitted to seeing Coudray-Greaves

Christopher Thomas, Gleaner Writer

WESTERN BUREAU:THE INVESTIGATING officer in the case against Ivan Taylor, the man charged with the 2012 murder of Trinidadian schoolteacher Michelle Coudray-Greaves, yesterday testified that Taylor admitted to seeing the Trinidadian on the night she went missing.

"On June 10, 2012, contacts were made to Ivan Taylor ... I spoke to him and informed him that a Trinidadian national he had assisted with transportation had gone missing, and that from information received, he was the last person she was seen with in his taxi," Detective Sergeant Clinton Brady, of the Montego Bay Criminal Investigation Branch, told the St James Circuit Court.

'ALWAYS RELIED ON ME'

The policeman also read a copy of a witness statement that he had taken from Taylor, in which the defendant stated that he had acted as an on-call taxi operator for Coudray-Greaves on the early morning of June 2, 2012.

"Michelle (Coudray-Greaves) always relied on me to take her places in the night when she was going out," Brady read from Taylor's statement. "Between June 6 and 7, I received a phone call from a female customer, and she asked me if I had seen the Trinidadian girl ... me tell her me leave her (Coudray-Greaves) at the Number One Post Office."

Under cross-examination, Taylor's defence attorney Trevor Ho Lyn asked if anyone besides Taylor had been taken into custody for the disappearance of Coudray-Greaves.

"Would I be correct in saying there were other persons who were taken into custody in relation to this matter?" asked Ho Lyn.

"Yes, one person," Brady conceded.

"Would you agree with me that another person was also placed in custody in relation to this matter?" asked Ho Lyn, while showing Brady a document containing a recorded statement.

"Yes, sir," said Brady, after perusing the document.

Brady's cross-examination is slated to resume on Monday, when a cell-diary from the Montego Bay Police Station will be brought to court to verify statements that were reportedly recorded in June 2012 in relation to the case.

The burnt remains of Coudray-Greaves, who formerly taught language at Cornwall College, were found in a canefield on the outskirts of Montego Bay ten days after she went missing, and had to be identified through DNA evidence and her dental records. These were provided by her mother, Trinidad and Tobago gender minister Marlene Coudray, who was the first witness for the prosecution.