by Jenique Belgrave
Clive Wayne Dover told police that he shot Rommel Jones at Three Houses Spring in St Philip in December 2021 after the businessman made sexual advances towards him.
During his arraignment before Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell in the No. 4 Supreme Court on Wednesday, the Guyanese national, who resides at Observatory Road, Clapham, St Michael, denied that he murdered Jones between December 9 and 10, 2021, but admitted to the lesser charge of manslaughter.
Accepting the plea, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Alliston Seale SC disclosed that on December 10, 2021, Jones' lifeless body was discovered at Three Houses. A post-mortem examination attributed death to a single gunshot wound to the head.
During the investigation, Dover, who was then 20 years old, was interviewed and eventually charged with the offence.
Seale stated that Jones was an auto mechanic and a businessman who bought and repaired damaged vehicles, sold car parts, and owned several rental car establishments.
In June 2021, Dover and Jones were involved in an altercation. Police were summoned after Jones made a report that Dover had taken one of his vehicles without permission.
The matter was investigated, and Dover told the police that Jones had taken him out in the vehicle to teach him how to drive, but began touching him and asked for sex. He refused and when Jones got out of the vehicle, he locked the doors and drove off. When the police asked Jones for more information after the car was returned, he did not want any further police action taken.
The day before his body was discovered along a path near the spring by two farm workers, several witnesses told police they saw Jones driving a blue Honda Fit with garage plates while accompanied by a young man. No one could identify the passenger.
The deceased's car was later seen parked in an area in Windsor, St George, and CCTV footage showed a man walking away from it, going onto the premises of a residence, changing his shirt and then making his way to the road before catching a route taxi. The police officer who investigated the report of the previous altercation recognised Dover in the video.
Dover was subsequently taken to the police station and in an electronic interview and written statement, he told officers that he had contacted Jones and asked him for a ride to containers near Sky Mall where he stored clothes. After this, Jones dropped off car parts and they headed to Three Houses where Jones went to wash his hair in the spring.
"I went down to the back and he followed me down. Then he touched me and I kick he. He fell down and then I shoot he in the back of his head. Then I get in the car and drove off. Then I park it and get in de van and come home," Dover said, later detailing that Jones had grabbed him by his buttocks and asked for sex.
He told police he returned the gun to the man he borrowed it from, and the two of them split the $800 he had taken from Jones' pants pocket after shooting him. He also said that he had thrown the clothes he had worn into a well.
Dover said he had been under peer pressure and his intention had been to rob Jones, but then "touching and things got involved".
Explaining the DPP office's decision to accept the manslaughter plea, Seale said that "notwithstanding the element of robbery that comes about, the murder didn't seem to be the primary purpose of it and also that is intermingled with the issue of the allegations of sexual advances, which clearly would raise the issue of provocation."
"So, in those circumstances, the State accepts this plea," the prosecutor explained.
Jones' attorney, Senior Counsel Angella Mitchell-Gittens, requested a presentence report which Justice Smith-Bovell granted and ordered for September 17.
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