The mystery of the beer bottles found at Keith Clarke's home

The daughter of slain businessman Keith Clarke has sought to explain the mystery surrounding the presence of numerous Red Stripe beer bottles seen scattered at her home in St Andrew on the night of the incident. 

Photographs of the bottles in the basement, living room and outside the home were shown today in the Home Circuit Court where three soldiers are being tried for the May 27, 2010 murder of her father.

Clarke's widow, who was the prosecution's first witness previously testified that she did not know who placed the beer bottles in the home or how they got there.

But her daughter, after looking at a photograph which showed eight bottles on a table in the living room, testified that the bottles were not there on May 26 when she arrived home or earlier on May 27 when Clarke escorted her him.  

Yesterday while commenting on a photograph showing several beer bottles on a ledge outside the house, she volunteered that her father would normally leave the bottles along the ledge for the garbage collector to pick up and take to Red Stripe company.

Clarke, a 63-year-old chartered accountant, was shot 21 times during the raid at his Kirkland Close home in Red Hills, St Andrew, by soldiers in search of then fugitive Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.

Coke was wanted by United States' authorities for drug and gun running offences.

Three soldiers – lance corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley, as well as Private Arnold Henry – are on trial. Justice Dale Palmer is presiding. 

The defence is contending that Dudus and a group of men had been hiding in the basement and had used Clarke's backyard as an escape route.

The defence also claims that Clarke pointed his licensed firearm at the soldiers and that gunshots that were fired from inside the house damaged two vehicles that were parked at the house. 

- Tanesha Mundle

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