(CNS): Police have charged Drayson Watson (47) in connection with the death of Kenneth Edroy Barnes (78), also known as Kenneth Christian, who was stabbed last week and died in hospital over the weekend. Watson, a butcher at the Cayman Turtle Centre, appeared in court on Monday but has not yet been charged with killing Barnes.
Watson currently faces charges relating to wounding and the possession of an offensive weapon (understood to have been his butcher’s knife) as the authorities await the results of an autopsy. The court heard that Watson and Barnes had come to blows outside the turtle farm on North West Point on Wednesday, 20 May, over an argument about the quantity of turtle meat that Barnes wanted to buy.
Watson, who is from George Town, is due to return to Grand Court Friday but was granted bail with strict conditions on an electronic tag.
He was arrested at the weekend for murder after Barnes died. However, his legal team have argued that Watson was acting in self-defence during the altercation. He claims that Barnes, the elder of the two men, armed himself with a metal pipe and hit Watson with it, inflicting a head injury. The initial police report about the incident stated that Watson had been treated in hospital for “minor injuries”.
Barnes was taken to hospital in critical condition after the altercation, having sustained multiple stab wounds to his head, neck and abdomen, as well as an injury to his leg.
