Twenty–seven spent casings, two damaged bullets — one of which was lodged inside a fridge door — and several areas with brown spots resembling blood marked the scene where St Catherine resident William Christian was gunned down, in April 2020, allegedly by two defendants in the ongoing trial of 25 suspected members of the Tesha Miller faction of the Klansman gang.

Details of the crime, contained in the statement of a detective corporal and scenes of crimes officer who processed the scene, were read into the records of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston on Thursday morning by a registrar as the Crown prepares to unveil the evidence in counts 19 and 20 of its indictment.

Count 19 charges the accused Michael Wildman and Lamar Rowe with knowingly facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation — the murder of Christian on April 18, 2020, while count 20 also charges both men with facilitating the commission of a serious offence by a criminal organisation — wounding with intent.

According to the cop, on Saturday, April 18, 2020 he was on duty when he was assigned to process “a scene of murder and wounding with intent” at Fairview in St Catherine. He said when he visited the lot address of the house in the “residential area”, he saw several spent casings on the road leading to the paved driveway as well as visible brown stains on the paved area leading to and on the verandah of the dwelling. The detective corporal, who said he took several images of the area, listed 27 instances in which spent casings were seen at various points of the premises, including the driveway and three areas where he saw “brown stains resembling blood”, in addition to “a damaged bullet” in the front doorway of the verandah and “a damaged bullet” seen on the inside of a fridge door.

He said after placing markers in those areas, he collected, packaged, sealed, and labelled the items before proceeding to Spanish Town Hospital where the body of the dead man was pointed out. He said the body, which was shirtless, was clad in a grey shorts and had “several small wounds”. He said he photographed the body, placed it in a body bag, sealed it, and handed it over to funeral home personnel for storage pending a post-mortem.

The lawman said he then went to Spanish Town Police Station where a black and red backpack belonging to the deceased was pointed out to him. He said upon opening the bag he saw a black magazine containing 17 rounds of ammunition, an Acer tablet, Jamaican currency, a wallet, and several other personal items.

The cop’s statement was one of three pieces of evidence which were on Thursday agreed by the prosecution and the defence, meaning that those witnesses will not have to physically take the stand to give their testimony since the material has been vetted by both sides and are not in contention, thus saving judicial time.

Several other witnesses, however, including the Crown’s two star witnesses, who were “eyewitnesses” will be appearing physically to give evidence on the counts.

Thursday’s sitting during which the first live witness for those counts was expected to take the stand was, however, prematurely adjourned after the acting deputy director of public prosecutions who has been leading the evidence said the witness, upon arrival, “said certain things” which the prosecution had been unaware of prior to the trial.

“I checked my file in respect of what was said and I reckoned that I needed to take a bit more instructions. I have given [the defence] an indication of what that is and in those circumstances I do not think it is prudent for us to proceed until I have taken that instruction and placed my friends in a position to appreciate that bit of information which is coming to the prosecution’s attention for the first time,” the prosecutor told presiding judge Justice Dale Palmer, who is trying the matter sitting alone.

As a result, the decision was taken to adjourn the sitting and the witness bound over to return on Monday, March 9 when the matter will resume.

The 25 accused — the second faction of the gang to now be tried by the courts — are to answer to 16 offences allegedly committed over the span of five years, between August 2017 and November 2022, according to the case being built by the Crown. The trial began on February 4.