Two walk free of murder charge for lack of witnesses’ testimony

Two men walked away from the Supreme Court free men this morning when a chief witness in the case claimed amnesia and two others disclaimed they knew anything of the incident. The two, twenty-five year old Pedro Guzman Junior and thirty year old Henry Baptist Junior were charged for the murder of twenty year old Hershel Brown. Brown was fatally stabbed around seven p.m. on July sixth, 2004, while he stood on a bridge between the towns of San Ignacio and Santa Elena.

In the Court of Justice Herbert Lord, one of the witnesses, forty-two year old Dean Brackett, who had given a statement to the police, took the stand, could not remember the incident and testified that he suffers from amnesia because he has had a drug problem for twenty years and is under medication. The second witness, thirty-nine year old Fernando Juan, who had previously told police that he saw Guzman stab Brown, submitted a written statement to the court disclaiming any knowledge of the incident. To compound matters for the prosecution, a third witness, Wilbert Wilshire who in his statement said that Guzman confessed to killing Brown, also changed his story and told the court that he has no knowledge of the incident.

Without the testimony of the witnesses, the prosecution was unable to proceed with the case.