A US national was forced at knifepoint to open his own safe while bound with duct tape, a court heard Wednesday, as the trial of a man accused of robbing three elderly people at Antigua’s Mill Reef Club entered its second day.

Marlon Carr of Fort Road faces three counts of aggravated robbery in connection with a brazen late-night attack at a Mill Reef Club property on April 6, 2022. The case is being heard by judge alone before Justice Ann Marie Smith. Two other men were originally charged alongside Carr — Rickardo Bussawan of Villa pleaded guilty in 2024 and is serving eight and a half years in prison, while charges against Delon Wills were dropped. Carr has taken the matter to trial.

The victims — a married couple both in their seventies and a female houseguest of similar age — had returned from a party around 10 pm and were unwinding at a poolside cabana when three masked, gloved, knife-wielding men suddenly appeared.

What followed was an ordeal that ended with Jewellery, cash, iPhones, iPads, and other items valued at over US$11,000 being stolen before the men fled.

When the trial opened on Tuesday, the female houseguest took the stand. She testified that her attacker grabbed her around the neck with what she believed was a knife pressed against her and stripped jewellery from her body, including a ring belonging to her late husband that she begged him not to take.

A police witness presented photographs of the scene showing duct tape, a knife, and a bloodstain on a bed, along with images documenting bruises on two of the complainants.

A security guard’s statement read to the court also revealed that a vehicle had arrived at the club’s gate at 7:30 pm that evening, driven by a man who identified himself as Marlon Carr and stated he was there to pick someone up.

In Wednesday’s proceedings, the male homeowner told the court he was grabbed from behind and marched to a safe the robbers already appeared to know about, where he was made to enter the combination while bound. The safe did not open immediately — prior attempts to crack it had triggered a delay — and the robber accused him of entering the wrong code deliberately. When it finally opened, cash and his wife’s jewellery were taken.

He said that once the men left, he freed himself, untied the two women who were bound on a bed, locked the front door, and immediately contacted the Mill Reef Club manager.

Security arrived within about 15 minutes.

His wife testified that she too was seized from behind, forced to open a different safe from which her iPad was taken, and then thrown onto a bed and bound. The men tried to pull rings from her fingers, stopping only because her fingers were too swollen.

The sharpest evidence on Wednesday, however, came from a statement Carr gave police, which an officer read aloud in court. Carr initially told investigators he had gone to Mill Reef to meet a female friend visiting from England, waited alone in his car for more than two hours, and left when she never appeared.

That version of events did not hold. By the end of the interview, Carr admitted he had actually driven a group of friends to Mill Reef, grew impatient waiting and walked toward the house, and when the men grabbed the women and one victim tried to flee and fell, he helped hold her down. He said he panicked and left, and that when the others offered him a cut of the stolen money, he refused. He told investigators the others wore masks while he did not, and that he was unarmed, though he believed the others carried knives.

The defence used cross-examination to raise the possibility that someone with intimate knowledge of the property was involved. The male homeowner acknowledged the men moved through the home with purpose, knowing exactly where the safe was, and confirmed that household staff — including a housekeeper and a chef — would have been well familiar with the property and the family’s schedule.

He also confirmed that a woman who had worked at the property was later identified as both the daughter of a staff member and the wife of one of the former co-accused. His wife agreed the men appeared to know exactly where they were going but testified that she later learned the men had already been inside the house attempting to access the safe before they ever approached the cabana.

The trial is expected to resume next week.