A Tropical Island Trial
The defendants and their families charge that the police rushed to judgment, out of fear that an unsolved murder would hurt Tortola's image. After more than a year in prison, the four men had a day in court.
They hired a team of high-priced lawyers. The defense had six lawyers from the Caribbean, along with three from the U.S. Facing them was 35-year-old prosecutor Terrence Williams. He argued that McMillen had cuts on her hands from trying to defend herself.
Although the evidence against the men was largely circumstantial, Williams had a witness: Jeff Plante, a Texas businessman who was in jail awaiting trial for passing bad checks. He had been Labrador’s cellmate.
Plante said Labrador told him about the crime: “Mr. Labrador asked me if I thought God would forgive him if he had anything to do anything with killing the girl…Lois McMillen.. I asked him whether or not he in fact had anything to do with killing Ms. McMillen…and he said yes…..I asked him how…and he said they were in an argument driving along. It got heated, I guess, and she attempted to pull into a police station here on the island, and one thing led to another and that it got out of hand. And he said that he had taken her and drowned her by putting his foot on the back of her neck.”
To the victim’s parents, the evidence seems convincing. “I feel that at least possibly two of them are really responsible for beating her to death. And probably the others are involved and know what happened,” says Mrs. McMillen. She thinks Labrador and Benedetto are the killers.
Labrador disagrees: “I think the McMillens wanted someone as a scapegoat. I can understand their loss. I can understand their sorrow but you do not convict innocent human beings.”
The defense got a boost when the Scotland Yard lab working on the case couldn’t produce conclusive evidence from blood and DNA. The defense says the forensic evidence prosecutors did present was meaningless.
After four weeks of testimony, the judge dismissed the murder charges against all except Labrador. After a year and a half in prison, George, Spicer and Benedetto were free to go. They quickly left the island.
Labrador’s defense hammered away at Plante, trying to discredit him. Defense lawyer Richard Hector pointed out that Plante, 59, had been married 10 times, and had had a long career as a con man.
After six weeks, the trial ended. The judge gave his instructions to the jury, and under the British system of law, he could give his own opinion of the evidence. He said he found some of William’s story implausible, but that much of Plante’s testimony could be true. With that, he sent the jury off to make up its own mind.
After almost eight hours of deliberation, the jury came to a verdict. Labrador was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
“To hear them come up with a guilty verdict.. totall, speechless,” Labrador said. “At the end of the day, not only am I framed, but more importantly they have not gone through the investigative process in determining who actually killed this woman.”
Labrador’s family and friends were furious, but the McMillens believed that justice had been done. “I was relieved…very relieved,” said Josephine McMillen. We know he ‘s guilty, so does the jury.”
Just this week, an appeals court upheld Willam Labrador’s murder conviction. And, in a stunning decision, ordered Alex Benedetto … who had been freed by the trial judge … to be re-tried for murder. Under Caribbean law, only a jury’s acquittal would have protected Benedetto from double jeopardy.
Go back to Part 1, Prisoners In Paradise.
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