Man accused of murdering Penn finally gets lawyer

The Dominican Republic native who is accused of murdering Alston Penn has acquired legal representation.

Yamarco Hernandez will be represented by attorney-at-law Akilah Anderson of N.R. Samuel and Co.

The Legal Aid Board here in the British Virgin Islands has assigned the attorney to the murder case.

The accused man is now scheduled to appear in the Magistrate’s Court on September 22 for a process known as paper committal.

That effectively means all the evidence will be presented on paper to the sitting magistrate, who will then decide whether there is enough evidence for the matter to be transferred to the High Court.

In April, Magistrate Ayanna Baptiste-DaBreo first advised Hernandez to get an attorney after she heard what she described as the seriousness of the allegations against him.

The prosecution alleged that there was ‘considerable phone traffic’ between the murder victim and the accused. The last call between the two allegedly happened a few hours before the murder.

It is further alleged that CCTV footage captured at a business establishment near the victim’s residence, shows Hernandez in a vehicle waiting to pick up the victim on the night of the murder, March 9. The video also allegedly shows the victim entering the vehicle shortly before 11pm on the night in question.

Both men then left the area where the CCTV is located. It is further that CCTV footage also showed Hernandez driving the vehicle from the direction of Windy Hill where Penn was found dead.

The prosecution stated that, hours after Penn’s body was discovered on March 10, the alleged murderer left the British Virgin Islands for his homeland – Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. He returned to the BVI on April 1 and was nabbed.

Penn’s lifeless body was found lying face-down in a pool of blood on the Windy Hill road about 5:25am on March 10. The lower part of his body was partly naked.