BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Oct. 2. 2025

   Yesterday, the triple-murder trial of former police corporal Elmer Nah resumed in the High Court, with a voir dire that took place today following a one-day adjournment that had been granted by the judge presiding over the trial, Justice Nigel Pilgrim, so that Nah could seek medical attention for an alleged injury he reportedly told his lawyer he sustained after being pepper sprayed in the Belize Central Prison.

   At about 9:00 a.m., police officer Jerome Middleton, who executed the search at Nah’s house in Belmopan following the shooting that claimed the life of Jon, Vivian and David Ramnarace on New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2022, took the stand to continue his testimony in the voir dire, which is a trial within a trial.

   For almost three hours, Middleton was cross-examined by Nah’s defense attorney, Dr. Lynden Jones, regarding three of four videos of the search of Nah’s house, which were captured by a body camera worn at the time by Middleton. The videos — which covered the hour-long methodological search of every room of Nah’s house — were viewed during the voir dire, and the viewing lasted an hour and a half due to pausing of the footage during the session.

   At the end of the morning session, Middleton was asked to read out loud the information stated on the front of the purported search warrant issued to conduct the search at Nah’s house.

  The last set of words on the search warrant were, “You can enter into the premises between the hours of 5:00 a.m., to 8:00 p.m., to enter premises and search for such goods and bring the same to me …”

  After Middleton read those words, Jones asked him if he agreed with him that there were discrepancies on the video cam — the fact that the warrant was read to Nah, his client, at 12:30 a.m., on the morning of January 1, 2023, which was New Year’s Day morning and was thus outside the timeframe stipulated.

  Jones then questioned the legality of the warrant, which led to an objection by Terrence Williams, representing the Crown.

   Nevertheless, Jones was able to point out that during the search by the police, no search warrant was presented to his client when the officers arrived at the house at 11:45 up until 12:30, which was the following morning, New Year’s Day.

  It was allegedly after their search outside of the yard had concluded that a search warrant was read out to Nah by an officer.

   The video footage showed Middleton and his team arriving at Nah’s house, but Nah was not seen at the entrance of the house on the footage recorded by the camera, although Middleton had testified to seeing Nah at the entrance of his house when he got there.

    The video cam footage showed Middleton entering the house, and his officers on his command searching all the rooms of the house. The women inside the house, a total of three, including Nah’s wife, were inside the house.

  Their daughter was asleep in a room.

   In cross examination, Jones asked Middleton if they found any gun during the search, then noted that none was found.   

   Oddly, during the search of Nah’s house, Nah, who seemed to be cooperating with the police, followed the officers to every portion of his house to which they went, and a number of conversations was heard occurring between Nah, the officer in command of the search, Officer Middleton, and the officers watching the search and conducting the search.

  The women were asked to stay at a central location of the house while the police did their search.

  Notably, both Nah and his wife were seen using their camera phones to capture video footage of the house search.

   During the cross examination of this witness, the Crown had several objections in regards to Jones’ line of questioning to Officer Middleton.

   Prosecutor Terrence Williams’ objections were noted, but Justice Pilgrim told both parties that those are matters they could address in their arguments.

   It was noted in the voir dire that the search ended with the police taking into evidence against Nah, a headlight he was seen wearing during the search, which is believed to have been used in the murders. A battle dress uniform — BDC — belonging to Nah was also taken as evidence.

   Jones argued, however, that the police had not presented a search warrant to confiscate any headlight belonging to his client.

   The trial continued at 2:30 this afternoon with Middleton taking the stand and the fourth video of the house search being viewed.

   The trial is expected to continue tomorrow, Friday, October 3, when the prosecution is expected to call 2 IT witnesses.

   Next Monday, October 7, FBI personnel will testify virtually, and on Tuesday, October 8, 2025, the Investigating Officer, Cpl. Casandra O’Brien, will be testifying also virtually before the Crown closes their presentation after calling witnesses in the voir dire.

  According to Nah’s lawyer, Dr. Linden Jones, Nah was pepper sprayed while in prison when he protested the beating of another prisoner. Jones said the pepper spray caused rusty particles from the cell block door to go into Nah’s eyes. Jones showed reporters a medico legal form in which a doctor who examined Nah on Wednesday morning, October 1, classified the resulting conjunctival congestion as harm.

  The last time Elmer Nah’s case was before the court was on Friday, June 17, 2025.

  The Crown was represented in court by the leading prosecutor, Terrence Williams, who is being assisted by attorney Walter Melbourne.