A former detective constable’s testimony delivered remotely from the United States has introduced significant contradiction into the high-profile murder trial of six Jamaican police officers accused in the 2013 killing of three men, challenging a core claim from an earlier prosecution witness.
Granted permission to testify via video link after prosecutors successfully filed a special measures application, the ex-detective – currently serving in the U.S. military and enrolled in a mandatory promotional program that bars him from traveling to Jamaica for in-person court appearance – took the stand on Wednesday to share his account of processing the 2013 crime scene.
The fatal shooting unfolded on January 12, 2013, near the intersection of Acadia Drive and Evans Avenue in St Andrew, where Matthew Lee, Mark Allen, and Ucliffe Dyer were killed. The six officers on trial – Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, and Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose, and Richard Lynch – all face murder charges; Fullerton additionally stands accused of submitting a false statement to Jamaica’s Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), the body that probes law enforcement misconduct.
A key earlier witness for the prosecution claimed that from his third-floor apartment window, he witnessed one of the three victims lying on the ground behind a parked blue Mitsubishi Outlander, with officers standing over him, before hearing what he described as explosions and seeing the man go motionless. That witness also said he observed blood in the spot behind the vehicle where he claimed the shooting occurred.
But the former detective, who was tasked with photographing, collecting, and packaging physical evidence from the scene the day of the shooting, told the Home Circuit Court he never detected any red substance matching the description of blood in that area behind the Mitsubishi. This account undermines the credibility of the earlier witness’s core narrative of the shooting.
Under cross-examination from defense attorney Hugh Wildman, who represents four of the six accused officers, the ex-detective confirmed additional details that cast further doubt on the earlier witness’s vantage point. Wildman put forward the argument that a third-floor observer at that apartment building would only have an angled, obstructed view of the parked vehicle, not a clear direct line of sight. The ex-detective told the court he could not confirm the exact location of the apartment building’s entrance, could not accurately estimate the distance between the building and the parked SUV, and never entered the apartment complex or surveyed the full length of Acadia Drive during his evidence collection.
The former detective also acknowledged that he did not use a formal tape measure to record distances at the scene, instead relying on pace counts to estimate measurements, and never measured the full width of the road. He confirmed that all spent bullet casings documented at the scene were properly collected, but noted he was not trained to collect gunpowder residue (GPR) samples, and is not a specialist in forensics or ballistics. When questioned about GPR, he explained that residue presence and concentration can be affected by multiple factors, including movement during firing, weather conditions, and the type of clothing a shooter is wearing. While he confirmed that firing a gun typically leaves GPR on a shooter, he noted that movement can reduce detectable residue levels.
The witness also told the court he was first contacted by INDECOM about two months prior to the trial, and later spoke to lead prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke. He confirmed he informed Pyke last week that his U.S. military promotional program made an in-person court appearance impossible due to conflicting scheduling. He added that he had not spoken to any other INDECOM representatives about his inability to travel.
Two of the six accused are represented by attorneys John Jacobs and Althea Grant-Coppin. Following Wednesday’s testimony, presiding Justice Sonia Bertram-Linton adjourned the proceeding until the following Monday.