Jury Convicts Delano Forbes in First of Four Murder Trials

Thirty-one-year-old Delano Forbes has been convicted of murder in the death of Maurison Thomas, a former post office worker found dead in his All Saints home in March 2018.

The guilty verdict marks the conclusion of the first in a series of four separate murder trials Forbes faces for killings that took place between 2017 and 2018. He also stands accused in the deaths of Wilfred “Bongo” Williams in Swetes, Shawn Henry in Point, and Lisue Williams on All Saints Road. Forbes’s legal team requested that each murder be tried individually.

The prosecution built their case around circumstantial evidence, weaving together witness accounts, forensic testimony, and recovered physical evidence to establish Forbes’s guilt without direct eyewitness or video documentation of the crime itself.

Medical testimony proved crucial to the prosecution’s argument. A pathologist detailed the brutal nature of Thomas’s death, explaining that catastrophic brain injuries and skull fractures—requiring extreme force from a blunt weapon—caused his demise.

The victim’s daughter provided pivotal testimony, describing how her father’s uncharacteristic silence prompted her to visit his home on March 7, 2018. Upon arrival, she witnessed a figure in an army-colored hoodie fleeing the residence. Inside, she made the devastating discovery of her father’s body.

The case against Forbes strengthened when police located him at a pump house following an alleged prison escape. At that location, investigators recovered Thomas’s wallet and a black bag, both later confirmed as belonging to the victim by his daughter. The defense  contested the ownership of these items saying someone brought the items to the pump house for Forbes.

Perhaps most damaging was digital evidence: a video Forbes had filmed of himself wearing the distinctive hoodie while displaying a wallet and black bag, then deleted from the phone. Police technicians successfully retrieved the footage.

The defense’s argument was that Forbes was framed and that the police failed to conduct a proper investigation when they did not retrieve finger prints from the crime scene or present DNA evidence.