Murder accused Andre Ruddock on Monday claimed that his now-deceased pastor, Kevin Smith, wanted him to take the blame for the October 17, 2021 murder of 39-year-old Taneka Gardner. But when he insisted that he would not, an argument developed between both of them in a police service vehicle which was taking them to Kingston from Montego Bay and the pastor threatened to crash the car and kill them all.

According to Ruddock, because of the threat, he was taken from the vehicle, in which three members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force were also travelling, and placed in a different police car, which was also destined for Kingston for both men to be charged.

“Kevin Smith said, ‘Do not tell anyone I killed Taneka Gardner and Michael Brown,’ ” Ruddock, who is on trial for Gardner’s murder, testified in the Home Circuit Court, downtown Kingston.

“Constable Irons said, ‘Yes, bwoy, tell dem wah happen.’ I said to him that I was not going to take his charge and mi a go tell dem what happened. He wanted me to take his charge and everything to slide under the carpet, so me go to prison and him go free,” the accused man told the court.

Ruddock said a disagreement developed between him and the pastor when the car reached the vicinity of Blue Diamond Shopping Mall in St James.

“I was seated in the middle at the back. Kevin Smith was seated beside me to my left. [Constable] Orlando Irons was to my right. Kevin Smith said if I ever speak and tell anybody who murdered the people at the church he was going to crash the car and murder the whole of us,” Ruddock said.

“I was removed from that car when I reached Falmouth and placed in another car. Orlando Irons said Kevin Smith was threatening me so he was going to tell the investigating officer to remove me out of the car. Kevin Smith was there talking a lot of things. Him a seh things like him and Taneka Gardener were having an affair for years from about 2019 and the girl contracted [a sexually transmitted disease],” Ruddock claimed, telling the court that he heard when Smith said those words.

“He said that’s the reason why he had done what he had done, that’s why he murdered Taneka Gardner. He was still saying I should take the charge and he would walk free. By that time we reached the Falmouth Police Station. I was removed and was placed in a next car with two police officers, including Inspector McLeod. Kevin Smith was in the same car they removed me out of. He was transported in a separate car from me. The car I was moved to broke down on the road near Meliá Braco,” he told the court, adding that he then had to be placed into a third car en route to Kingston.

He claimed that he was moved to a marked police vehicle which eventually arrived in Kingston and he was taken to the Major Investigations Branch.

The car carrying Smith did not make it to Kingston as, in a bizarre twist, the vehicle crashed on the Linstead bypass in St Catherine. Authorities reported that he died along with Constable Irons, who was among the lawmen transporting the cult pastor.

In May 2024 a coroner’s inquest found that the crash did not occur because of excess speed and as such the policemen, who were placed before the inquest, were credible witnesses.

The inquest found that Smith assaulted the cops who were transporting him, and the judge ruled that his actions were unlawful, dangerous, and caused the death of Constable Irons.

Smith was the pastor at Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries in Albion St James, where Gardner was killed in what was said to be a human sacrifice ritual.

More details from Monday’s court sitting online.