(Source: Associated Press/AP Online)
CHARLOTTE AMALIE, U.S. Virgin Islands - Lawyers for three U.S. Virgin Islands men accused of beating and stabbing to death a 21-year-old Pennsylvania man argued Monday that media pressure pushed prosecutors to pin their clients with false charges.
The three men - Anselmo Boston, Kamal Thomas and Jahleel Ward - were arrested after the parents of James Cockayne of New Hope, Pa. appeared on U.S. news programs and accused Virgin Islands detectives of botching an investigation into their son's 2007 death.
On the first day of their murder trial, defense attorneys told jurors their clients had been charged as a result of that publicity.
Prosecutor Brenda Scales countered that the three men were guilty in the "ruthless, brutal and senseless murder" of Cockayne, who had recently moved to the U.S. Caribbean territory and was to begin work at a yacht club.
Witnesses said Cockayne had been drinking at a St. John bar on the afternoon of June 19, 2007, when Boston, 32, accused him of having kicked his girlfriend's car, Scales said.
The argument escalated until Cockayne was chased from the bar by the three suspects and fatally attacked outside a nearby clothing store, she alleged.
Boston, 32, Thomas, 19, and Ward are being tried together in Charlotte Amalie, capital of the three-island U.S. territory.
