A high-stakes murder trial involving six current and former members of Jamaica’s national police force has hit critical evidentiary hurdles, after a retired investigating detective offered conflicting and uncertain testimony during his remote court appearance on Monday.
The former detective constable, who resigned from the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) and now resides and works overseas, testified via pre-approved video link after the court granted his special measures request, which cited work commitments that prevent an in-person appearance.
The six officers on trial at Kingston’s Home Circuit Court stand accused of involvement in the January 2013 fatal shooting of three men — Matthew Lee, Mark Allen, and Ucliffe Dyer — on Acadia Drive in St Andrew. One of the accused, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, faces an additional charge of submitting a false statement to the Independent Commission of Investigations, Jamaica’s independent police oversight body. The other five accused are Sergeant Simroy Mott, and constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch.
During Monday’s proceedings, the seven-member jury watched as prosecutors unsealed a series of evidence envelopes the former detective submitted to forensics following the 2013 shooting. The witness confirmed that the handwriting on the first envelope matched his own, and confirmed he labelled the packet as part of the official investigation. However, he told the court he observed clear signs the envelope had been opened and resealed after it reached the government forensic laboratory. When the prosecution pulled a spent bullet casing from the envelope and displayed it to the witness, he could not confirm it was the same casing he recovered from the crime scene, packaged, and sent for testing.
A second envelope labelled by the witness was then unsealed; after examining its contents, the witness stated the fragment inside resembled a piece of lead. Prosecutors next moved to present a series of DVDs the former detective testified he created with his own crime scene photos and evidence documentation. When prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke requested the DVD be loaded into the court’s computer to display its contents to the witness, the defense team immediately raised a series of objections.
Hugh Wildman, the lead defense attorney representing four of the six accused officers, argued that the witness is no longer a serving JCF member, is not a recognized forensic or digital evidence expert, and therefore is not qualified to provide formal identification or testimony related to the DVD’s contents. The full defense team, which also includes attorneys John Jacobs and Althea Grant-Coppin, further raised disputes over what type of software should be used to access and display the image files stored on the disk.
Later in the proceedings, the defense raised another objection when the witness referenced his 2013 written investigative statement to answer questions about his actions on the day of the shooting. Defense attorneys argued the witness should testify from his own memory, not from his contemporaneous notes. In response, the former detective pushed back, noting that the shooting occurred more than a decade prior, and that written statements are specifically created to preserve investigative memory. He told the court, “I cannot remember what I did 13 years ago. I can only reference my statement which I wrote. I made notes at the scene. We preserve memory by writing statements and that is why I refer to my statement and not memory. This statement refreshes my memory on what I wrote but not what I did on that particular day.”
The former detective also confirmed that he collected multiple pieces of evidence from the shooting scene, including spent bullet casings, blood reference samples, a peak cap, a lighter, and a fragment that appeared to be part of a belt. All collected evidence was transported first to his local office before being sent to the government forensic lab for analysis, he said.
Following Monday’s contentious proceedings, the trial is scheduled to resume on Tuesday.