Witness changes testimony; accused killer walks

Tonight an accused murderer is a free man after the prosecution’s star witness changed his story on the witness stand. According to court reports, up until this morning, Jason Paulino had been charged with the murder of Nicholee Lewis. Lewis was gunned down outside the Bismarck Club in Belize City in February 2004. The day after the incident, Donald Gaskin told investigators that he saw the shooter and positively identified him as Jason Paulino, someone he had known for a long time. But shortly after Gaskin picked up the Bible and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, he suffered an attack of amnesia. Two years after his initial statement to the authorities, Gaskin claimed that he had only seen “a man” fire a shot and that man was someone he had never even seen before. With that said, Crown Prosecutor Kamar Henry could only rise to offer a motion of no further evidence against Paulino. Justice Troadio Gonzalez then dismissed the twelve jurors that had been empanelled to hear the case and ordered that Paulino be set free. But as for Donald Gaskin, his dealings with the system of justice were not quite over. Once court was dismissed, Gaskin was immediately detained as the prosecution has indicated that he will be charged with either “fabrication of false evidence” or “contradicting previous evidence”. Today’s incident in court may not be as clear cut as the law would like however, as it is strongly believed that Gaskin was threatened with death if he testified to what he had seen on the night in question. Police suspect that Nicholee Lewis, the victim in this case, had been killed because he was to be the main witness in the murder trial against Jamie Dawson. Dawson and Paulino are brothers.