KINGSTON, Jamaica — What was meant to be the start of a high-profile murder trial this week in Jamaica’s capital has been pushed back years, after prosecutors requested a delay to complete critical procedural steps in the case against prominent Portland businessman Everton “Beachy Stout” McDonald. McDonald stands accused of orchestrating the 2009 shooting death of his first wife, Marlene McDonald.
The proceeding was scheduled to open Monday before Justice Leighton Pusey at downtown Kingston’s Home Circuit Court. However, prosecuting representatives immediately filed a motion for adjournment, asking for additional time to formally serve legal documents tied to a Section 31D(a) court application. The Crown also confirmed it is considering revising the list of witnesses named on the original indictment.
The proposed changes to the witness roster have drawn fierce pushback from McDonald’s defense team, which is led by attorneys Monique Scott, Anna Kaye Scott-James, and John Jacobs. The court will issue a formal ruling on the adjournment request and the witness modification dispute when the matter next comes up for review on May 15, 2025. Following the ruling, the full trial will not get underway until January 27, 2027, marking the second delay to the proceeding after it was originally scheduled for April 2026.
The 2009 killing of Marlene McDonald, who was gunned down outside her Boundbrook, Portland residence, sat as an unsolved cold case for more than a decade. It was only reopened and McDonald was charged after his connection to the violent 2020 murder of his second wife, Tonia, was uncovered.
In September 2024, McDonald and his co-defendant Oscar Barnes were convicted and sentenced to life in prison for Tonia’s brutal killing. On July 20, 2020, Tonia was found murdered on a main road in Portland’s Sherwood Forest community: she had been stabbed multiple times, her throat cut, and her body was left burned inside her Toyota Axio, which the attackers also set on fire.