Dixon’s story ‘a complete concoction’, says crown

(CNS): Javon James Dixon (29), who is on trial for the murder of his friend, Jovin Omar Fuentes (32), last summer lied to the police about many things, Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Candia James-Malcolm said Tuesday. As she summed up the crown’s case against him, she said that his story was “a complete concoction” and there was no man named “Blacks”, whom Dixon accused of killing Fuentes. James-Malcolm told the jury the claim that a man he picked up on the road was the gunman was a “red herring meant to distract you from the plain truth”.

Four of Fuentes’ family members who were with him that day in July 2022 when they were taking his grandmother to a medical appointment have all testified that they saw Dixon with a gun and that it was him who killed their nephew. While the prosecutor accepted that their stories sometimes conflicted, she argued that not everyone sees the same details, especially during a “sudden, traumatic incident… that unfolded very quickly”.

But all of them were unshakable in their evidence that Dixon killed Fuentes, she said. None of them saw the man Blacks in Dixon’s car, despite his claims that this hitchhiker, wearing a fluorescent green-yellow high visibility vest, was sitting on the passenger side with the window of the car down.

James-Malcolm said Dixon had lied about Blacks, just as he had lied about his movements after the shooting and had lied about losing his phone. CCTV and phone records had all contradicted Dixon’s account, she said and reminded the jury about the answers Dixon gave the police during an interview just two days after Fuentes was murdered.

She said that Dixon had given very little information to the police about Blacks, even though he claimed this stranger had randomly murdered his friend as a result of a series of coincidences. He didn’t know his real name or his phone number but described him as a tall Jamaican who worked in construction whom he sometimes picked up in Savanna and gave a ride to Bodden Town, as he had that day.

James-Malcolm asked the jury to consider Dixon’s story that it was just by chance he had picked Blacks up, and it was just by chance that a few minutes later Dixon had suddenly come across Fuentes parked by the mini-mart and had pulled up and engaged in an argument about a debt of $175.

After a protracted discussion with Fuentes and his family, all while Blacks was sitting silently in Dixon’s car just feet away from the witnesses, Dixon had returned to his car with the situation apparently resolved. But then, without explanation, Blacks had suddenly shot Dixon’s friend, either because he knew him, had coincidentally held a grudge against him and decided to kill him at that moment, or because he was a random stranger whom he shot without reason.

“Absolutely none of these scenarios make any sense,” James-Malcolm said. “Because there was no Blacks.”

She said that the defence had heavily criticised the police for not properly investigating the possible existence of Blacks. But she pointed out that Dixon had given very little help to the police to find the man he claimed was the killer to clear his own name and ensure the right man was charged. Instead, he gave a vague description that could match hundreds, if not thousands, of men in Cayman.

She said the police had done the best they could with the information he gave them. However, they had four eyewitnesses who all said Dixon was the killer. None of them had seen a second man in his car, even though they were just a few feet away from where Dixon claimed he was reclined in a hi-vis vest. She also queried why the family would collude against Dixon if he was an innocent man and allow the man who really gunned down their nephew to go free.

Blacks “was a fanciful fabrication”, the lawyer told the jury, and, gesturing towards Dixon, who was wearing a smart purple shirt and dark slacks, she said that Fuentes’ killer “is right here in the dock”. She said he had the motive, opportunity and means, and the jury could be sure of his guilt.

Dixon, who did not give evidence in court but told the police his version of events two days after his arrest, had created a story to distract from what really happened, she said. “This was a desperate attempt by a desperate man to avoid taking responsibility for murdering his friend,” she said as she finished her closing comments.

Amelia Fosuhene, who is representing Dixon, will give a summary of her client’s defence at 10am Wednesday.