A detective corporal from the Major Investigations Division of the police force yesterday detailed the grim sight and horrid smell of burnt human flesh that greeted investigators who were called to the scene of a double murder allegedly committed by members of the Klansman gang in the wee hours of September 9, 2017.

“When I went into the compound where the incident took place… I saw smoke coming out of the rubble. It was obvious that somewhere had burnt down. I saw spent casings — different types of spent casings,” the detective corporal said, adding that the casings were of different sizes and colours.

“I remember seeing nine millimetre spent casings and 5.56 millimetre spent casings,” she testified in the Supreme Court as the trial of 33 people accused of being members of the feared gang continued.

In the embers, the detective said, were the remains of the two individuals.

“I could see the charred remains of two persons, and how I knew they were two persons is that they were huddled together, and I saw the torso areas where the ribs were, and I saw the skulls. I could smell the burnt flesh; it had the smell of when somebody kills a dog and burns a dog,” she stated.

The detective’s testimony supported the Crown’s statement, when it opened the case on September 20, 2021, that Jermaine Bryan and Cedella Walder died “huddled together” after they were peppered with bullets and their crudely constructed dwelling in the New Nursery community in Spanish Town was burnt to rubble by the thugs.

The Crown had said that incident, which is reflected in counts seven and eight on the 25-count indictment, was among crimes committed between 2015 and 2019 attributable to the gang.

The Crown, in referring to the evidence to come, had said that incident was “demonstrative of the gruesome manner in which this gang operated”.

The act was said to be carried out by the accused Andre “Blackman“ Bryan, alleged leader of the gang, and co-accused Fabian Johnson, Dylan Mclean, Brian Morris, Michael Whitely, Tareek James, and Jahzeel Blake.

Yesterday, the detective corporal told the court that cops at the scene processed the area, taking photographs and securing the casings as well as a five-litre water bottle containing a liquid which had somehow survived the blaze.

She said that the charred remains were removed from the scene in body bags by representatives from a mortuary and taken to Spanish Town Hospital where a doctor confirmed that the individuals were dead. She told the court that the body bags were then sealed, labelled, photographed, and taken to a funeral home.

According to the detective corporal, a subsequent visit to the funeral home brought her in contact with the mothers of both of the deceased.

“I collected statements from them, and I took them into the room where the post-mortem was supposed to take place,” she said.

Following the autopsy, the mothers were taken to Matilda’s Corner Police Station in St Andrew where arrangements were made for representatives from the forensic lab to collect swabs from the bones of the deceased individuals, the detective said.

She also said she observed the forensic experts taking buccal swabs from both mothers.