Crown Counsels Valston Graham and Christlyn Benjamin represented the crown, while attorneys Patrick Thompson and Ruthilia Maximea  appeared for Plasimond and Edourne respectively.

The prosecution earlier stated that that the alleged boat captain, Roro Edourne, of the ill-fated “Jesus LA” was the first man overboard after the vessel collided with rocks in the Nora Hazel Point, Brandy Wine Bay, Tortola.

Meanwhile, Colon who is an eleven year veteran of the Coast Guard, described giving chase along with the members of his team after spotting a boat on radar that “appeared to be driving in a reckless manner”. He further told the court that the boat had no lights at the time and was trying to evade the spotlight being shone by the Coast Guard vessel.

Colon related receiving a call with instructions then subsequently pursuing the un-lighted vessel after being asked to intercept it. The boat was allegedly discovered to be speeding after the Coast Guard team shone their spotlight on it and allegedly reached speeds of up to 29 knots at one point.

The Coast Guard team, he related, tried reaching the boat on "channel 16" as well as on the loud hailer but received no response to either; meanwhile, he said the vessel was initially about a 100 yards away from the team “but as the time was passing, their distance was greater and greater before [the team] lost sight of [the boat and its crew]”.

He told the court that the team lost sight of the vessel for about 5 or 10 minutes but still had them on radar and saw them heading for land. The team then received a call from their air asset that the vessel had capsized. The witness told the court that he was unfamiliar with the body of water that they were in at the time but believed it to be in the Virgin Islands.

The Coast Guard then assembled a team with a smaller boat that could go faster and venture into shallow waters. Upon arrival at the scene of the capsized boat, Colon related that they saw debris in the water and “we saw a woman holding on to the capsized vessel, she was on top of it.”

The team took a decision to take survivors back to their main boat after seeing persons crying out for help in the water. As they made their way back to the main boat with 7 of the survivors, he saw a boy lying face down in the water. He estimated the boy to be about 3 or 4 years old at the time and he appeared to be dead.

He also related seeing a customs boat arrive and observing that the passengers “looked very weak”. He also described hearing one of the rescued women crying out for her two babies; “my two babies, my two babies” he described her as saying.

He further explained that the team transferred up to 7 survivors at a time. Eventually they went back and saw the girl on the boat in addition to a few other persons who appeared to be on some rocks as well. They reportedly rescued those persons and returned to do did a quick survey for additional survivors but were unable to see any so they went straight for the girl on the boat.

The team, Mr Colon stated, later saw an EMT (Emergency Medical Team) vessel which had a “good Samaritan” who spoke French and was able to assist some of the survivors as well as translate information for the Coast Guard team. Colon told the court that they took general information from the survivors and he did the normal documentation process. He told the court that the survivors appeared exhausted as they were at the back of the Coast Guard vessel.

The team was later instructed to transfer the survivors to Virgin Islands authorities at 6 A.M. on December 6, 2012