Mr. Alphonso, on trial for the 2006 murder of Christopher “Marlon” Bailey, chose to stay in the dock. After prosecutors spent seven days laying out their case, Mr. Alphonso’s attorneys began their defence on Tuesday by calling the defendant’s sister, Carol Alphonso-Lettsome.

Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome told jurors that on the night of the stabbing that led to Mr. Bailey’s death, Oct. 26, 2006, her brother was sleeping on the couch at the family’s home in Horsepath.

Earlier that day Mr. Alphonso, his mother, brother-in-law, and a friend were cleaning the defendant’s Kingstown home, Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome said.

As it began to get dark, her brother left. Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome said she returned to her Horsepath home where she lived with her mother and her husband. She started to watch “General Hospital” on television, and heard someone at the door at about 9 p.m.

“I heard a knock on the door and I went to open it, and it was my brother, DA,” she said.

Her brother went to the kitchen and later lay down to sleep on the couch opposite her, she said. He was there while she watched television and was still sleeping when she went to bed around 11 p.m., she said.

A few minutes later, her brother knocked on her bedroom and asked if he could go down the road to Fish Bay so he could call his girlfriend in Antigua, Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome said.

He brother didn’t have a key to the Horsepath house and had to ask to be let out, she added.

Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome went with her brother to his Fish Bay house and waited five or ten minutes in her Jeep so he could use the phone, she said.

They later returned to Horsepath and Mr. Alphonso went back inside, according to the witness. A few hours later, Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome said, she got a call from her brother Martin “Tony” Alphonso. Soon after he showed up at the house with police inspector Tony Noble, looking for Desmond Alphonso.

That account was challenged when prosecutor Terrence Williams cross-examined Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome, who he implied was lying.

“I suggest to you that when you say Mr. Alphonso was at your house from 9 to 11 p.m. that you aren’t speaking the truth,” the prosecutor said.

“I’m not lying,” Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome said and held up the Court’s Bible. “This is the Bible; I wouldn’t lie on this.”

The defendant’s sister said that her brother frequently slept at the Horsepath home during October 2006 because he was “afraid” of three Jamaican fugitives – Mr. Bailey, Dennis “Soupy” Campbell and Andrew “Ratty” Milton. Those men were wanted in connection with the murder of Dorcas Rhule. Mr. Alphonso later pled guilty to sheltering the fugitives.

Ms. Alphonso-Lettsome said that she never had any conversation with her brother about the men.

The full article appears in the March 4, 2010 issue.