THE cop who was the lead investigator into the alleged robbery and murder of St Catherine man Zamari McKay, supposedly at the hands of a faction of the Klansman Gang, was on Wednesday taken to task for being “negligent” after he admitted that he gave no thought to whether DNA might have been left by the perpetrator/s on items of clothing, a piece of which was used to bind the feet of the dead man.

The cop, a detective sergeant, who was taking the stand for the second day in a row during his evidence in chief, testified that on August 11, 2022, he travelled to a section of the Lakes Pen main road in St Catherine where he saw a body lying face down in an “illegal dump area”, with the feet bound, and with gunshot wounds.

That man, said to be McKay, was, according to the Crown, a victim of the accused Carlos Williams, Jermaine Clarke, and Owen Billings, who have been indicted on counts 28 and 29 of the charging document for “knowingly facilitating” McKay’s robbery and killing. The three are among the 25 accused now being tried for crimes committed by the so-called Tesha Miller faction of the Klansman Gang.

While being cross-examined by Attorney Paul Gentles, the lawman admitted that he wore no protective clothing or gloves while on the scene, but said, “We had gloves in the car.” The cop had testified Tuesday that items retrieved from McKay’s body, including a driver’s licence, Taxpayer Registration Number card, along with an identification card and bank card belonging to another individual had been handed to him.

The lawman agreed that gloves were necessary to prevent “contamination”, but was however adamant that the items he handled had been “processed” before they were handed to him. He said at that time he “had on a pair of gloves” when he was handed the items which are now exhibits in the trial.

That insistence, however, was scoffed at by Gentles.

Asked by Gentles whether there was potential for contamination if he “collected the items before they were swabbed for DNA or tested for fingerprints”, the cop said, “It could have been.”

The attorney continued his line of questioning despite objections from the prosecution, which contended that there was “no evidence before the court of any potential DNA”, and went on to quiz the cop about the whereabouts of the merino which had been used to bind McKay’s feet, and the shirt which had been pulled over his head.

The cop, however, indicated that he had not secured either piece of clothing as he did not consider them potential pieces of evidence at the time.

“With all due respect, sir, I am going to suggest that you were a negligent investigator at the time you investigated Zamari McKay’s case,” the attorney said.

“I don’t agree,” the lead investigator retorted.

Meanwhile, attorney Lynden Wellesley, in cross-examining the witness, charged that the cop, in giving details from the stand that were not in his original statement, committed a “series of blunders”. In branding the cop a liar, he said he had “surgically” removed details from his statement which was on the file disclosed by the prosecution only to spring them on the court during his live testimony.

The cop, however, maintained that he had only made the disclosures because he was directly questioned about those details.

The matter resumes today.