KINGSTON businessman Steven Causewell yesterday told jurors in the Home Circuit Court repeatedly that he did not kill his ex-girlfriend, Nordia Mitchell, and that he is very sorry she is gone.

“It is really an unfortunate and a tragic situation, but I did not kill Nordia; you must believe me. I am not guilty,” Causewell stressed.

The defendant’s made the declaration during an unsworn statement delivered from the prisoner’s dock after the defence’s no-case submission was rejected by Justice Carol Lawrence-Beswick.

The 40-year-old businessman and father of two was arrested and charged with murder in July 2008, after Mitchell was killed at her Oaklands apartment in St Andrew.

It was initially reported that Causewell had allegedly thrown Mitchell from the apartment, causing her death, but forensic evidence has since revealed that her death was as a result of a blow to her head.

The defendant, in his statement to the police, said that he went over to the apartment to talk with Nordia; and after they got into a physical fight she stormed out of the apartment and he later found her unconscious at the back of the premises.

But Causewell, during his statement to the court yesterday, told the jurors that it was Mitchell who had invited him over to talk and that she was the one who initiated the fight by “hitting and grabbing at him” and he retaliated by hitting her.

However, he could not say where he had hit the woman, even though he may have said something to the police. Causewell, in his statement to the police, had said that he had given Mitchell some “thumps and licks” along with a discoloured eye.

The defendant also sought to clear the air about evidence which was given by Mitchell’s friend that on the night of her death she had heard him asking Mitchell if she was sleeping with her new lover.

“I was shocked when I heard that I had enquired of Nordia’s sex life. That is not so, I said no such thing. It is a lie,” he said.

According to him, at that time he told Mitchell to ask Jody to leave, since she had invited him over to talk.

“I am not guilty. I did not kill Nordia Mitchell. I did not kill anybody. I have not committed a crime,” Causewell insisted.

The trial will resume on Tuesday.