Sugar Ray Thomas
For over nine years, Leon Lee had a murder charge hanging over his life.
However, on Tuesday, February 14, Lee walked out of the St Ann’s Bay courthouse as a free man, after a seven-member jury found him not guilty of murder or manslaughter. The verdict came following five days of retrial into the case.
Lee was on trial for the murder of 37-year-old Collin Gordon, who sustained a head wound, allegedly stemming from a family dispute in which Lee intervened on September 11, 2007. Gordon later died on September 21, that same year and Lee was, days later, arrested and charged with murder.
When the jurors returned late last Tuesday with the not guilty verdict, the tears were not easy to control for Lee and when high court judge Justice Georgiana Fraser told him that he was free to go, there was no looking back for Lee, who hugged family members outside the courthouse.
“Yes I expected to be free today (Tuesday, February 14). I always think about being free, because I am not guilty of it (murder). I am free and I am so glad right now,” Lee told The Times in an interview.
When asked about how he felt when he heard the jurors return a not guilty verdict on murder and the lesser offence of manslaughter, Lee said that tears came to his eyes.
“It is like tears came to my eyes. Words can’t explain. I’m so glad,” Lee said.
With tears apparently welling up in his eyes he said: “I love my mother so much. Can’t explain…. Can’t explain…. Thank God to be free.”
Lee’s mother, Heather Bailey, said that she prayed for her son and she knew deep down that her son would be free of the charges.
“I feel so over elated and happy. I must thank God first. I don’t stop pray. I asked for prayer. I know that he would walk free, because there is a God and he said that he would never leave us alone. When you’re innocent, he will always be there for you, so I trust God. I know he was coming home today. I know,”Ms Bailey said.
Lee was equally thankful to his lawyer, Pearline Bailey, who he hugged last Tuesday afternoon, for defending him in court to the very end.
Bailey, who also spoke to the North Coast Times, explained that she believed that justice was served.
“I believe that justice had been done. Mr Lee was trying to part a dispute between siblings when the deceased attacked him and he defended himself. It’s been nine years. It has been a long road and second trial, but I believe that justice was done in the end, because he was not the aggressor on the day,” she said.
The case against Lee had seen a trial commence in May 2015 before then high court judge Justice Carol Lawrence-Beswick.
However, according to Bailey, the first trial was aborted.
“The first trial was aborted, because some jurors indicated that they saw some persons around the courthouse and they felt intimidated,” she said.
However, there was no hitch in the case as the trial commenced, with Lee walking free of murder and the lesser offence of manslaughter after nine long years.
COLLIN GORDON’S DEATH
The trial into the alleged murder of 37-year-old Collin Gordon, otherwise called ‘Bullu’ began on Tuesday, February 7.
It is alleged that on September 11, 2007 in Seville Heights, St Ann, there was a dispute between Gordon and his siblings. At the time, Leon Lee, otherwise called ‘Ritchie’ was playing a video game.
Lee, who was the boyfriend of one of Gordon’s sisters, later left the game and went outside to intervene in the dispute.
Lee told the siblings to “unuh must live good, because unuh a family.” However, Gordon turned to Lee and told him that he must “come out of family business.”
The dispute between the sisters continued and again Lee told them that they “must live good.”
In sworn testimony from the dock, Lee said a shot fired from the video game that he had been previously playing inside and he turned around to face the house. However, someone shouted out his name and he realized that Gordon had thrown a stone at him.
Lee said that he ducked and hid behind the wall and when he got up, Gordon was facing him. He said that Gordon grabbed him in the chest and he (Gordon) almost punched him (Lee) in the chest. He said that Gordon then attempted to pull him over a wall.
According to Lee, Gordon then noticed a knife on the ground and Lee said he felt that if Gordon got hold of the knife, he would use it on him (Lee).
Lee said that there were some sticks and other stuff leaning against a wall and he used “something” to hit Gordon on the left side of his shoulder area.
However, when the prosecution had first presented its case, two witnesses, Audrey and Herman Gordon, who are siblings of Collin Gordon gave contrasting testimonies of what happened on the day in question.
They said that it was Lee who was the aggressor on that day and he was the one that collared Gordon first.
Both siblings said that they saw Lee use a 2 x 4 board to hit their brother to the back of his head and he later collapsed on the road.
In the testimony of Herman Gordon, he also said that Lee had one machete and three knives. However, this was not in the statement he had given to the police initially, which he admitted to under cross examination by defense attorney, Pearline Bailey.
Collin Gordon was taken to the St Ann’s Bay Hospital and was later transferred to the Kinston Public Hospital. He died on September 21, 2007.
However, in his testimony, Lee contended that he hit Gordon on his shoulder and it was a fall to the ground that allowed Gordon to sustain injury to his head.
By giving testimony, Lee also subjected himself to cross examination by the prosecution.
A post-mortem report that was tendered into evidence under the agreement of facts between the prosecution and the defense stated Gordon’s death was caused by bleeding in the brain and a blunt force injury to the head.
In summing up the case to the jurors last Tuesday, Justice Georgiana Fraser told the jurors that they must decide if Lee deliberately intended to kill Gordon. She also told them if they believed that Lee did intentionally kill Gordon, but he was provoked and had to use self-defense, then he must be found guilty of manslaughter.
However, the jurors, who retired for little over an hour, returned with a unanimous verdict of not guilty.
