THE FACTS | This much we know for certain. On September 30, 1997, in the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis (population: 39,000), 20-year-old beauty queen Leyoca Browne and her mother, 36-year-old Violet Browne, were fatally shot with a gun owned by Bertil Fox, then 46. Fox, who previously had been engaged to Leyoca and was at the scene of the crime when the shootings occurred, was arrested and charged with the murders.
His first trial ended in a hung jury, split five to four for acquittal. After much public outrage about the lack of a guilty verdict, he was retried, convicted and sentenced to hang. British human rights lawyers appealed, and FoxÂs automatic death sentence was ruled unconstitutional; he was resentenced to life in prison. He remains in a St. Kitts prison today.
THE PRESS | Fox is very critical of what he perceives as the unfair reportage he and his trial received. Stories frequently referenced ÂÂroid rage and the presumed aggression and insecurity of bodybuilders. One of the people Fox singles out is Rick Wayne. Formerly a champion bodybuilder, an accomplished bodybuilding writer and the associate publisher of FLEX, Wayne is now a newspaper publisher and a political commentator in his native St. Lucia (a Caribbean island neighboring St. Kitts).
In a British TV documentary, Wayne claimed Fox dislikes white people. Fox writes to Lund: ÂI have never told him that. I am no bloody racist, you know that. Please, if you write anything from these letters, please put that straight for me. Most of my friends are white, including girlfriends.Â
To find out more about THE CORRUPTION, THE PROSECUTION, THE WITNESSES and the THE CONTROVERSY in the Bertil Fox case, pick up a copy of December FLEX.
