After appealing a 57-year sentence for the 2011 murder of his fellow fish cleaner, Quaison ‘Blondie’ Jones is now a free man after a jury returned a not guilty verdict this afternoon.
Jones was accused of the January 17, 2011 murder of his fellow fish cleaner, Marlon Greene, and was found guilty in June 2014 of the crime. He had, however, maintained his innocence and later appealed the ruling of Justice Navindra Singh.
At the Court of Appeal, Jones had contested the severity of the sentence and the issue of misdirection by the Judge Singh.
Having found that Justice Singh committed certain errors, the Court of Appeal overturned the conviction and sentence and remitted the case to the High Court for a new trial.
Today’s not guilty verdict came about two hours after Justice James Bovell-Drakes gave a summation of the evidence.
According to reports, on the day of the incident, some other fish cleaners at the Meadow Bank Wharf, East Bank Demerara, were attracted by loud hollering and when they ran to the location they observed Jones cuffing away at Greene.
It was reported that a closer look revealed that Jones was armed with a knife, and there were bloodstains on the blade. Greene’s windpipe and jugular vein were severed and his cause of death was given as shock and haemorrhage, according to a pathologist.
Jones was represented by attorney-at-Law Ronald Burch-Smith, while the case for the State was presented by prosecutors Tiffini Lyken and Tameika Clarke.
