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Second woman says Rogers confessed to killing

A second ex-girlfriend of an alleged killer yesterday claimed in court that he confessed to murder.

The witness, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, told the Supreme Court that Cleveland Rogers told her years after the alleged murder that he killed Marcus Gibbings in 2006.

She said: “I was talking, in general, about the killings in Bermuda, about how people could just sleep after taking a life.

“He just came out and told me he had murdered someone.

“I asked ‘who?’ and he said Marcus. I asked ‘why?’, and he said there was a guy stalking his sister and she wanted him to take care of it.”

But Marc Daniels, representing Mr Rogers, suggested she had become friends with another of the accused’s ex-girlfriends — who told the court last week that Mr Rogers had confessed to the crime.

The witness said she had become closer to the other ex-girlfriend, who also cannot be identified, and the pair had discussed the details of the case.

The woman said Mr Rogers did not go into the details of the murder, but Mr Daniels pointed out she told police the defendant had told her he had crouched behind a couch. The witness accepted she had been told that by the other ex-girlfriend.

She said: “It was a misunderstanding. There must have been another statement to say that she was the one that told me, not Cleveland.

“There must be another statement because I did correct myself.”

Mr Daniels also questioned the witness on why she did not report the alleged confession to police sooner. She said she did not know how to take it and did not take it further.

Mr Daniels also showed the witness a series of notes she had written to Mr Rogers.

She had written: “You may hate me right now, but you have no idea how much I hate you right now for everything you have done to me and everyone else.”

The witness also told Mr Rogers that “karma” would come back on him.

The body of Mr Gibbings, 32, was found inside an apartment on Derwent Lane, in Devonshire, on October 26, 2006.

Katrina Burgess, Mr Gibbings’s ex-girlfriend, and Mr Rogers, her half-brother, are charged with his murder.

Both deny the charge.

The prosecution has alleged that Mr Gibbings was lured to the apartment, which he had shared with Ms Burgess, and was stabbed to death by Mr Rogers.

The court earlier heard evidence from Mr Roger’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, who claimed Ms Burgess had paid Mr Rogers $5,000 to kill Mr Gibbings because he had cheated on her.

The court yesterday also heard evidence from a woman witness who testified that she had started an affair with Mr Gibbings weeks before his death.

The woman said she had met Mr Gibbings in September 2006 while out with friends and they had started a relationship.

The witness told the court that she had contacted Mr Gibbings the night before he died and spoke to him for about 40 minutes.

She told the court she called him again at around 10pm the same night and left a message, but he never responded.

The witness said she was contacted by police on October 27, 2006. She spoke to officers later that day and at first told them she and Mr Gibbings had a “purely platonic friendship”.

But she later admitted the affair to officers.

Charles Richardson, representing Ms Burgess, said: “You didn’t tell police at first that you were sleeping with Mr Gibbings because you didn’t think they knew.”

The witness said: “I didn’t tell them because I was married and that was not the question I was asked.”

She added she could not remember the question that made her reveal the affair.

The woman told the court that, to her knowledge, her husband only learnt about the affair the day after Mr Gibbings was found dead.

But she admitted that her husband had earlier questioned her about Mr Gibbings after he had noticed text messages from him on her phone.

The trial continues.

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