DR Claudette Clarke, the widow of accountant Keith Clarke, was unable to provide the court with an explanation for numerous empty beer bottles found in different sections of their upper St Andrew house after he was fatally shot by members of the Jamaica Defence Force in 2010.

Continuing her testimony in court on Monday, Dr Clarke was asked by the prosecution who drank eight bottles of beer and left them on a table in the first room people walk into when they enter the house through the front door.

More beer bottles were seen in a bedroom in the basement area of the house.

“I cannot say for sure how those bottles got there because I didn’t see who put them there,” the widow said during the examination in chief.

Last week Dr Clarke had told the court that no one was visiting or staying with the family at the time of the incident.

She added that no one stayed with the family in the weeks or days leading up to the fatal shooting of her husband in the house.

She also told the court that the door leading to the basement was usually locked and needed a specific key from a bunch to gain entry.

But photos shown in court suggested that a bed inside a bedroom in the basement was made, and it appeared that someone had been staying there.

Keith Clarke was killed by soldiers who were on operation in Kirkland Heights, St Andrew, where the Clarke family lived.

Members of the military, along with the police, had gone to the house in search of then fugitive Christopher “Dudus” Coke, who was wanted by United States authorities on drug and gun charges.

Three soldiers
— lance corporals Greg Tinglin and Odel Buckley as well as Private Arnold Henry
— are on trial in the Home Circuit Court in downtown Kingston accused of murder in Clarke’s killing.

Dr Clarke told the court last week that on the night her husband was fatally shot, she and her daughter arrived home from a rehearsal. She said neither her husband nor anyone else was at home when she got there.

She said when her husband eventually got home she made him a sandwich and went back to bed.

“I… was in bed for about 10 minutes when I heard a sound like a plane or helicopter. I didn’t pay it any mind at first but the sound was getting closer and closer. I got up and looked through my bedroom window. I saw the helicopter and bright lights shining from it.

“The light was coming from the front of the helicopter. I woke up my husband and told him that something was flying around with a bright light. He got up, looked, and then went back to bed but not to sleep. I heard sounds like something was dropping on the house top. I shook him and said, ‘Keith, Keith, get up. Something is dropping on the house.’ It was getting more frequent. I also heard sounds at the side of the house like somebody was trying to saw the door. I was scared, wondering what was happening. My husband was looking scared too. My daughter called the police, the neighbour, and our pastor,” she told the court.

Dr Clarke said her husband eventually got up and the family went to the basement because they were not sure what was happening. After numerous failed attempts to find the key to enter the basement, the family of three went back upstairs to the master bedroom.

According to Dr Clarke, the females hid in a bathroom while the husband and father climbed on top of a closet to hide himself.

In court on Monday Dr Clarke said her husband kept his licensed firearm in a locked box which was stored on top of the closet.

She alleged that after the soldiers entered the bedroom her husband was climbing down from the top of the closet, with his back turned, when he was fatally shot by the soldiers.

Dr Clarke told the court that her husband did not appear to have anything in his hands at the time he was shot.