Detective, defence clash over what statement said about Gardner’s killing

An investigator insisted in the Home Circuit Court on Tuesday that she was told that Andre Ruddock had been instructed to cut the throat of church member Taneka Gardner despite the defence challenging her account.

The detective sergeant maintained under cross-examination that her statement contained a reference to Ruddock cutting Gardner’s throat after defence attorney Anthony Williams pressed her on what an injured church member had actually told her on the night of the October 2021 incident.

The church member, a junior minister in training and one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, had testified that he witnessed Ruddock cutting the woman’s throat on October 17, 2021, on the compound of the Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries church in Montego Bay, St James.