State expert counters testimony that Clarke was shot atop closet
Published:Tuesday | July 2, 2024 | 12:10 AMTanesha Mundle/Staff Reporter
A former government forensic analyst on Monday testified that Keith Clarke was shot while inside the closet in the master bedroom, contradicting the testimony from his widow and daughter that it occurred while climbing down from atop the closet.
The 63-year-old businessman was shot 21 times at his Kirkland Close, St Andrew home, on March 27, 2010, during a police-military operation to apprehend then-fugitive drug lord Christopher ‘Dudus’ Coke.
Lance corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley, as well as Private Arnold Henry, who were charged with his murder, are currently being tried in the Home Circuit Court before Justice Dale Palmer.
Clarke’s widow and daughter previously testified that they witnessed Clarke being shot while climbing down from the closet with his back turned to the soldiers. Clarke’s daughter, Brittany, had insisted that he was shot at the window while coming down.
But the former forensic analyst, while being questioned by prosecutor Dwayne Green about Clarke’s likely position when he was shot, based on the blood spatter captured in a photograph she was shown, said he was wounded while at the left side of the closet.
Asked by Green if she was referring to where the window was, the witness said, “No, Sir, inside the closet. Inside the open portion.”
She further shared that it would be “a little inside the closet” and that based on the blood spatter, Clarke would have been about eight inches from the wall.
The closet spanned the entire length of the eastern wall of the master bedroom and from the photograph, two open sections were seen, one of which the witness identified as the area where the Clarke was injured.
The witness also testified that it did not appear that Clarke was shot in front of the widow.
She, however, repeated that based on the blood spatter evidence, Clarke could have been shot while in an upright position based on the height of the blood stains.
The witness testified last Thursday that he could also have been shot while lying on the floor or injured in the lower region of his body while in an upright position.
Meanwhile, the witness further shared that one of the DNA swabs taken from two Red Stripe bottles in the bedroom on the ground floor was of male origin.
She explained that the test kit has markers that can denote the sex of the DNA.
According to the witness, swabs were collected from bottles taken from the garden, the staircase leading to the ground floor, a bedroom on the ground floor and a shelf in the bedroom.
However, she said only the results of the swabs taken from two bottles on the shelf in the bedroom showed a male origin.
The witness will face cross-examination when the matter resumes on Monday. The trial was postponed due to the threat of Hurricane Beryl. Additionally, two of the jurors had indicated their unavailability for Tuesday.