A rendezvous at a church property followed by a trek to a family yard and a shared meal of porridge in the “vicinity of a pig pen” preceded the ambush and killing of American missionaries Randy Hentzel and Harold Nichols in April 2016, if the statement of one of the two cousins accused of committing those murders is to be believed.

The cousins, Dwight Henry, a 33-year-old farmer who is serving life for those murders, and Andre Thomas, who is now on trial in the Home Circuit Division of the Supreme Court in downtown Kingston for his role in the slaying, reportedly met up on the grounds of the Methodist Church in Port Maria, St Mary, on the fated day.

But according to Thomas, it was Henry who killed both men, declaring that, “White man dem slave wi,” while accusing him of “chickening out”. Thomas, in a statement to cops read into the records of the court on Wednesday, claimed that he had wanted nothing to do with the murders and told Henry, “Mi nuh deh pon what him a do,” to which his cousin allegedly replied, “Mi haffi meck some duppy this year.”

However, Henry, in testifying against his cousin under a plea deal earlier this month, insisted he only shot one of the missionaries and his cousin shot and chopped the other to death. Thomas, however, claims that Henry not only single-handedly ambushed and killed the two men but also robbed them of their wallets and phones.

A retired deputy superintendent of police (DSP), retaking the stand on Wednesday, said he, on Saturday, June 10, 2016, along with other cops, set out from the Richmond Police Station in St Mary in the company of Thomas, with the agreement being that Thomas would show them the places he and Henry had met and ultimately the crime scene.

He said on arrival in Port Maria, Thomas pointed in the direction of a church located near a bridge, saying that was where he met Henry on April 30, 2016.

From there he said Thomas directed them to the home of Dwight Henry’s father. Once there Thomas told cops that he and Henry “drank porridge” before the ambush and murder.

“I asked Thomas where exactly in the yard he had the porridge and he showed us a spot in the vicinity of a pig pen. I asked him where he and Dwight boiled the porridge and he said ‘inside the house’,” the cop said. He, however, told the court that Henry’s father said his son did not have a key to his house and that on the day of the murders he and his wife went to the market.

According to the cop, Thomas then told them, “Mi ago tell yuh how it go, a Dwight kill di white man dem.”

He said Thomas, upon being cautioned, said he was willing to make a statement and also said he was willing to do so without an attorney present.

Furthermore, the cop insisted that Thomas was “not beaten, threatened, offered anything, neither was anything untoward done to him”.

“What he said was done voluntarily on his part,” the cop testified. He said Thomas was the one who volunteered to take the crime fighters to the spot where the men were killed.

He said, once at the scene, Thomas told cops that, “[Dwight Henry] tie up one a di white man, run dung di next one, and shot him and him run through the bush.” According to Thomas, Henry chased “the white man in the bushes and chopped him”.

“I asked him where, and he pointed to a spot in the vicinity where Randy Hentzel’s body was found. I asked him if he chased the white men into the bushes, he said no, it was Dwight. I asked him what he did while Dwight chased the white man, he said he waited until Dwight returned,” the retired DSP said.

He said when they returned to Henry’s yard Thomas said, “Mi want to clear mi conscience, mi ago tell how it go.”

In a subsequent statement recorded in the presence of cops and signed by Thomas, the accused man said, “Mi deh a Dwight yard a wait when him tell mi go look pon di bike dem. Him call mi pon him phone and direct mi inna di bushes. Mi walk and see Dwight and the white man dem.”

“Him tie up one a the white man dem with piece a him shirt, put him fi lie down on the ground. The other white man ride off his bike and Dwight lick him in him head and shot him. Him run him dung in the bush and come back and shot the other one. Dwight take way the man them wallet and phone. The first shot he fire missed and he tell me say the white man dem slave wi and say mi chicken out. Mi tell him say mi nuh deh pon what him a do, and him say him haffi meck some duppy this year,” Thomas claimed.

“One a di white man tell him say he is a pastor, and him say him nuh business with religion,” Thomas further told the police in that statement.

The retired cops testimony was corroborated by a female cop who said she was among the police party who did the scene visit with Thomas in 2016.

Nichols, 53, and Hentzel, 49, his colleague missionary from the Pennsylvania-based Teams for Medical Missions, 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 some 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.

A consultant forensic pathologist contracted by the national security ministry disclosed that Hentzel died instantly from a single bullet to the head fired at close range, while Nichols, who was still alive after being shot once in the back, died from one of six chop wounds to his head delivered with enough force to chop “the branch of a big tree”.

The matter, which is being heard by Supreme Court judge Justice Leighton Pusey with a jury, resumes today at 10:00 am.