Father clueless if daughter was intimate with Pastor Kevin Smith

KINGSTON, Jamaica — The father of Taneka Gardner, the 39-year-old woman who had her throat slashed on October 17, 2021, at the Pathways International Restoration Ministries in Albion, St James, told a defence attorney on Thursday during cross-examination that he had no knowledge of his daughter being in a romantic relationship with the late pastor of the church, Dr Kevin Smith.

The murder trial of Andre Ruddock, the man accused of killing Gardner, got underway in the Home Circuit Court in Kingston on Thursday after a seven-member jury was empanelled on Wednesday.

Ruddock, under instructions from Smith, allegedly cut Gardner’s throat during what is widely believed to be a sacrificial killing.