DNA evidence challenged in Acadia Drive police murder trial

A forensic analyst told the Home Circuit Court on Wednesday that a blood sample taken from an unidentified male inside a blue Mitsubishi Outlander connected to the 2013 Acadia Drive police shooting could not be used to prove there was a fourth person involved. She said the material did not yield enough genetic data to say whose blood it was.

In earlier testimony, the analyst had said the sample did not generate a usable DNA profile. However, testing of the sex marker showed that the genetic material came from a male.

The court was told that the sample, labelled Exhibit J, had “failed to produce a result in the areas tested with the exception of the sex-determining marker. This marker tells us if the DNA present originated from a male or a female.”

The witness is giving evidence in the murder trial of six policemen accused in the fatal shooting of Matthew Lee, Mark Allen and Ucliffe Dyer in St Andrew in 2013. Defence attorneys pressed her on whether the unidentified sample could point to someone else being inside the vehicle.

Attorney John Jacobs, during cross-examination, asked whether the male DNA could indicate that another person was in the Mitsubishi Outlander.

“You would not be able to say with certainty whether it came from a fourth person?” Jacobs asked.

“I cannot say who it came from at all,” the analyst answered, repeating that the DNA was too limited to create a profile that could identify its source.

The witness also accepted that full DNA matches had been made for all three deceased men from samples recovered at the scene and from within the vehicle.

Jacobs then asked whether Exhibit J could be connected to any of the three dead men. The analyst said she could not make that link because the sample produced no reading that would allow a comparison.

When Jacobs tried to continue along that line, lead prosecutor Kathy-Ann Pyke objected. She submitted that the witness had already made clear that no useful profile existed and that any further conclusion would be speculative.

Trial judge Justice Sonia Bertram Linton said the issue had been put to the witness and answered several times.

Earlier, defence attorney Hugh Wildman also questioned the analyst about Exhibit J, asking whether it represented another DNA result. The witness said it was instead a sample that had produced no result in the tested areas.

Wildman asked whether she could state that the sample came from the right passenger seat. The analyst said the laboratory paperwork recorded only that it was collected from inside the car.

“What would you require to make a more definitive pronouncement on it?” Wildman asked.

“I would need readings from the areas that were tested,” she replied.

Under cross-examination by attorney Althea Grant-Coppin, the witness said forensic testing at the time used 13 genetic markers, which satisfied international standards then being applied. She said the system was later upgraded in 2017 to test 20 markers, improving sensitivity and the ability to distinguish between individuals.

Grant-Coppin also asked about bone and flesh recovered from the car and whether testing showed it came from a male. The witness said all markers for that sample, including the sex marker, failed to produce a reading.

The attorney further asked: “Am I correct in saying that DNA profiles are inferred statistically and not absolutely?”

“Correct,” the witness said.

Sergeant Simroy Mott, Corporal Donovan Fullerton, and Constables Andrew Smith, Sheldon Richards, Orandy Rose and Richard Lynch are before the court for the murders of Lee, Allen and Dyer. The three men were killed during a police operation on Acadia Drive in January 2013.

The defence case is that the policemen were carrying out their duties when they stopped a car carrying four men. The men allegedly fired at the police, who returned fire. The defence says one man got away, while the other three were shot, wounded and later died.

A ballistic expert also went back on the witness stand yesterday.

The superintendent of police, who examined the ballistic material in the case, pointed out several exhibits. Among them were two firearms said to have been recovered after the fatal shooting, and those items were entered into evidence.

The court also admitted an Arcus 9mm pistol and a nine-millimetre Luger Cobra submachine gun as evidence.

The ballistic expert is expected to continue giving evidence today.