By RASHAD ROLLE
POLICE escorted Kofhe Goodman from court yesterday during his murder trial after Goodman stood and said he was “disturbed” by the prosecutor’s closing submissions and claimed he was being threatened by those in the gallery behind him.
The 37 year old is accused of killing 11-year-old Marco Archer, of Brougham Street, between September 23 and September 28 of 2011.
“For four months I put up with this, but I only human you know,” he told Justice Bernard Turner during the Supreme Court trial yesterday.
He claimed that throughout the trial family members of Marco Archer had threatened to kill his own family members. “I ain kill no one to put no one in any garbage,” he then said, adding: “Who gon kill someone and throw them next door to their house?”
With jurors looking on Goodman requested to leave the courtroom, saying he would return when the prosecution’s closing submissions were finished and Justice Turner had decided to sum the case up.
Goodman’s attorney Geoffrey Farquharson told the jury of 11 women and one man not to make an emotional ruling. “Y’all like to jump to conclusions on us men,” he said.
He accused the prosecution of using the jury to “murder” Goodman, claiming death awaited Goodman if he was convicted of the charges brought against him.
“When a child goes missing the first people we suspect is the family,” he added, asserting that after Marco’s family members gave allegedly questionable statements to police in connection with the matter, “police should’ve descended on their place like ants.”
Then, speaking about whether the body found in Yorkshire Drive is that of Marco Archer, he said: “If this body that they found did not have a scar under the left eye, that is not Marco Archer.”
The DNA evidence brought during the trial was inconclusive because of the presence of DNAs from unidentified persons in the sample, he claimed.
“Why have you not seen the evidence of the Marco Archer DNA?” he asked. “Why have you not seen Marco Archer’s father’s DNA to see if the pieces match?” “The evidence you needed in this trial to give you what you need you never had because officers involved chose not to save it,” he said.
Garvin Gaskin, prosecuting, accused Farquharson of making incoherent arguments during his closing submissions. “The defence was like a stage circus,” he said.
Referring to Goodman, he said: “Little Marco’s dead body was by your house in the back of your yard and his clothes in your garbage with your DNA on it. What’s worse is that this little boy was from Bain Town and you were from Cable Beach and your DNA was found on his naked dead body.”
Gaskin said: “Marco could not consent to his clothes being taken off by anyone. The defendant tried to impose his sexual intentions on Marco.”
Gaskin said no scar was found on Marco Archer’s body because the body was badly decomposed.
He showed photos of Goodman’s home and car to the jury.
Among the exhibits were two photos of two separate sheets. He asked the jury to compare the rose decorations on the sheets.
Marco’s “dead body was wrapped up in a sheet and that sheet matched the fitting of the sheet found on Goodman’s bed,” he said.
Before completing his submissions he said Marco “was taken without due authority by this defendant and left to rot in his back yard.”
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