The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

TWO men awaiting trial concerning a fatal nightclub shooting in Abaco will not have their case transferred to the Supreme Court until February 2017.

Lorenzo Pritchard and Renaldo Williams appeared before Magistrate Andrew Burrows yesterday for the presentation of a voluntary bill of indictment.

However, the documents were not ready and police prosecutor Supt Ercell Dorsett requested an adjournment to February 21, 2017.

Both men face a charge of murder in the October 23 slaying of Christopher Hield, the country’s 81st homicide victim for the year.

According to police reports, Hield was involved in an argument with another man near a nightclub off S C Bootle Highway. Shortly after the argument, a suspect allegedly went to his vehicle, got a shotgun and shot Hield before fleeing the area in an unknown direction.

Hield was taken to the local clinic where he was pronounced dead on arrival.

Police in Abaco immediately mounted an island-wide manhunt that resulted in the arrest of two male suspects for questioning in connection with the incident.

Pritchard and Williams will not be allowed to enter a plea to the murder charge until they are formally arraigned before a judge of the Supreme Court.

Both are on remand at the Department of Correctional Services in the interim.

Their lawyers, Ian Cargill and Terrel Butler, were not present for yesterday’s brief hearing.