A 12-member jury has acquitted a Devonshire resident who had been accused of murdering a 23-year-old member of the national football team in 2021.
Raheem Wray, 25, had been charged with a single count of murder in connection with the fatal stabbing of Osagi Bascome in the early hours of December 18, 2021. But the jury consisting of 10 women and two men, returned a not guilty verdict after deliberating for seven hours.
Family members of both the accused and the deceased in the gallery broke down in tears as the verdict was read and Wray himself fought back tears as he thanked the judge, Justice Mark Pettingill, who oversaw the trial, for his release.
He left the courtroom escorted by police and surrounded by his family.
During the trial, the Supreme Court heard that Bascome was involved in an altercation outside a party when he suffered two stab wounds to his left side. He was taken to hospital in a car by other partygoers, but one of the two injuries punctured his heart’s left ventricle, causing his death.
The court heard that no one called 911 from the party and one witness, who cannot be identified because of a reporting restriction, said that he had heard what he believed to be a punch and turned to see Bascome looking shocked.
He said he then saw Wray stab Bascome with a poking motion before leaving the area in a car.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Cindy Clarke, told the jury that although there was no forensic evidence, the Crown’s case was “rock solid”.
She said that there were three strands of circumstantial evidence that the jury should focus on – opportunity, the behaviour of the defendant before the stabbing and his behaviour immediately afterwards.
The DPP told the jury that identification was “at the heart of this case” and pointed to the evidence of witnesses who had seen Wray involved in the altercation and one who had seen the stabbing itself.
But Wray’s attorney, King Counsel Jerome Lynch, argued that police had failed to consider other suspects after the defendant was arrested and charged.
He said that there was tension between another person and the victim over a drug debt that Bascome had refused to pay, and that, according to the victim’s brother, the other person was “hyped and angry” on the night of the killing.
The person was identified by one independent witness as the man involved in the initial fight with Bascome, and Lynch told the court that the person in question left the island last year and his whereabouts are not known.
