'Beachy Stout' bail decision again pushed back
Published:Thursday | May 13, 2021 | 4:26 PM
Justice Vinette Graham Allen was today forced to delay her decision on bail for Portland businessman Everton 'Beachy Stout' McDonald, who is charged for plotting the deaths of his two wives.
The decision was expected today but was delayed after defence attorneys requested time to go through the contents of a document that provides details on the new evidence that was recently obtained by the prosecution and to seek further instruction from their client.
The 67-year-old accused, who appeared in court via Zoom, was remanded until June 1.
In the meantime, his co-accused, Oscar Barnes, who was previously offered $500,000 bail, was remanded for the police to verify his alternative address.
Barnes was ordered to reside in Windsor Castle in Portland as a condition of his bail.
Barnes and McDonald are charged in connection with the murder of the businessman's second wife, Tonia, which took place on July 20, 2020.
Tonia's partially burnt body was found with the throat slashed beside her burnt car along the Sherwood Forest main road in Portland.
Another man, Denvalyn Minott, said to be the contract killer, was also arrested and charged and pleaded guilty in the Home Circuit Court last September and was sentenced to 19 years in prison.
Minott, in a witness statement, claimed that he was offered $3 million by McDonald told to kill his wife.
In the first murder, a cold case, the businessman is charged in connection with the killing of Merlene McDonald, who was shot dead outside her home in Boundbrook, Portland in May 2009.
It is alleged that he had paid a police detective to kill his wife after their marriage crumbled and she left the matrimonial home.
McDonald is being represented by attorneys-at-law Bert Samuels and Matthew Hyatt while Barnes is represented by Earnest Davis.
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