AN assistant superintendent of police (ASP) and ballistics expert has testified that his analysis confirmed that American missionaries Randy Hentzel and Harold Nichols — murdered in 2016 — were shot with the same gun that belongs to the class of Intratec firearms.

The ASP, who was the latest prosecution witness to take the stand in the ongoing trial of St Mary cab driver Andre Thomas — who is facing two counts of murder for the slayings — said he had examined a spent shell and an unexpended cartridge taken from the scenes.

Last Tuesday Dwight Henry, the man who earlier this year pleaded guilty under a plea deal and is serving life for the murders in turning against Thomas — his “far cousin” — admitted to using what he called an “Intratec gun” to shoot one of the men, claiming that his cousin shot the other. He also said he had given the gun to a friend the same day the murders were committed, after he and Thomas went their “separate ways”.

“The indention that was seen on the unexpended cartridge matches the indentation on the expended cartridge case and therefore the unexpended cartridge was attempted to be fired by the same firearm that fired the expended cartridge casing,” the ballistics expert told the hearing in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Monday morning.

“Also, based on the class, characteristics observed both on the expended cartridge casing and the unexpended cartridge were consistent with being from the class of Intratec firearms,” the ASP, assigned to the State’s forensic lab, said.

The ballistics expert, who said he has seen hundreds of casings fired from Intratec firearms, told the court that using the FBI database “which stores information on hundreds and thousands of different types of firearms and their features, the Intratec firearm came out as a potential source from which the components were fired”.

“Finally, the possibility that it could have been fired from an Intratec-type firearm was confirmed using a reference standard which is an Intratec firearm that was test-fired from our labs,” the ASP testified.

He, however, said the bullet recovered from the body of one of the missionaries was not examined by him but had been assigned for analysis to another colleague who has since left the constabulary.

Nichols, 53, and Hentzel, 49, his colleague missionary for the Pennsylvania-based Teams for Medical Missions, went missing on Saturday, April 30, 2016 after leaving their Tower Isle, St Mary, homes on motorcycles to visit a site where they would be doing some charity work the following week. When they did not return a search party later that day discovered Hentzel’s body lying face down, his green helmet still over his head, with his arms bound “tightly” behind his back by a piece of cloth torn from the green T-shirt in which he was clad. Nichols’ body was found some distance away on the Sunday afternoon.

A consultant forensic pathologist contracted by the national security ministry disclosed that Hentzel died instantly from a single bullet to the head fired at close range while Nichols, who was still alive after being shot once in the back, died from one of six chop wounds to his head delivered with enough force to chop “the branch of a big tree”.

On Monday Thomas, his unkempt hair parted in spiky plaits, reclined mostly throughout the sitting, inert except for an occasional jarring cough.

The matter, which is being heard by Supreme Court judge, Justice Leighton Pusey with a jury, resumes today at 10 am when it is expected that Henry will retake the stand for further cross-examination by the defence.