BOTH the Crown and defence rested their case Tuesday in the matter against murder accused Andre Thomas, charged with the brutal killing of two missionaries in St Mary in 2016.

While the Crown had called 23 witnesses to support its case, the defence only called Thomas himself, who testified Tuesday that despite observing the murders, he did not participate, changing his story again.

It is now expected that on Wednesday closing arguments will be heard.

Thomas’s co-accused Dwight Henry is now serving time for the murders.

Harold Nichols, 53, and Randy Hentzel, 49, were missionaries for the Pennsylvania-based Teams for Medical Missions. They 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 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.

When Thomas gave his account to a panel of jurors, he said on April 30, Henry called his phone and requested that he assist him with trimming a farm in Albion, St Mary. While he was there, according to Thomas, he heard a motorcycle approaching and without warning Henry ran towards the vehicle, brandishing a gun.

When Hentzel alighted the motorcycle, Thomas said, the man declared that he was a Christian, to which Henry told the man that “him nuh business him a wah.”

Before carrying out the act, Thomas said Henry pointed the gun at him and called him a coward because he told him to “leave di man alone”.

Thomas added that Henry ordered Hentzel to lie face down on the ground, and then used the machete he had on him to cut off a piece his shirt, which was then used to bind his hands. Hentzel was then reportedly shot in the head.

Thomas further stated that shortly after they heard another motorcycle approaching and Henry proceeded to shoot a man, who was later identified as Nichols, in the back. But Nichols did not die immediately, instead after falling from the motorcycle he started to run, which prompted Henry to give chase, Thomas stated.

He said he waited where Hentzel was killed for about 30 minutes until Henry returned and they parted ways.

But prior to this, the defendant said in a statement signed June 5, 2016, he was at his house when he heard that his relative, Dwight Henry – who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the missionaries’ murder – had confessed that he was behind the murders, along with another man.

Then in the other statement, dated June 11, 2016, Thomas reportedly said he only participated in the murders by tying Hentzel’s hands because Henry had threatened his life.

But this was not the only tale Thomas gave. He told jurors that on June 3, 2016, he was taken into custody and he was beaten by police officers after they placed a bag over his face.

He also reiterated what his attorney, Leroy Equiano, argued in court on Monday, that the investigating officer had bribed him by leveraging his prior charge of having sexual intercourse with a person over the age of 16 years.

He said the investigating officer had a vendetta against him.

“It come een like him don’t like me because if him see me in a the street him wah jump out on me and lock me up for no reason at all. Him tell me already say him must send mi go prison or him a go kill me,” Thomas said.

Earlier in the proceedings Tuesday, it was also revealed that station diaries for some months for the Richmond Police Station, where Thomas was held in 2016, are missing. The commanding officer for that police station testified that they were only able to locate the March and December diaries.

These diaries, she told the court, record the welfare of prisoners, including certain visitors, when they are fed, the kind of food they are fed, doctor’s visits, and any complaints the prisoner might have.