The smoking bullet

Criminologist and forensic-reconstruction expert, Dr Jason McKay, has stated that Jamaica needs to be thankful, proud and supportive of the various state agencies’ collective roles that led to former Member of Parliament (MP) Jolyan Silvera pleading guilty to manslaughter after initially declaring innocence in the killing of his wife, Melissa.

Silvera was yesterday sentenced to almost 21 years in prison for his wife’s death.

A serving police officer and chief executive officer of McKay Security Limited, McKay pointed out that, ironically, it was Jamaica’s proficiency in ballistics record-keeping, driven by the country’s high incidence of shootings, that led to Silvera’s overnight manslaughter plea on the eve of the trial.

Silvera, a one-term MP, representing St Mary Western, pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter for killing his wife in November 2023. He is set to be sentenced on March 6.

“Available evidence for use by the prosecution was limited in many ways because the crime was committed without any eyewitness and, unbelievably, the weapon was the defendant’s licensed firearm, which would raise the question of practicality,” McKay reminded.

“Remove the manslaughter plea, proceed with a murder trial and all you would have left is a quarrel, suspicious post-shooting activity and a ballistic comparison from a damaged weapon that experts elsewhere would have possibly rendered inconclusive if not armed with the unique layers of Jamaica’s firearms records and comparable skills set at our lab.

“We could have very well had an acquittal were it not proven that the barrel of the gun was damaged after the fatal rounds were fired from the defendant’s licensed firearm, which was never reported stolen or missing,” posited McKay, whose 25-year expertise in forensic reconstruction was relied on by the defence in noted cases of national interest such as the Braeton Seven and Kraal murder trials involving police teams led by retired Senior Superintendent of Police Reneto Adams.

BALLISTIC EXPERTS

“The scientific evidence demonstrated that Jamaica’s ballistic experts are among the best in the world, ironically, because of the amount of practice they have in their area of expertise due to the volume of gun crimes committed in Jamaica.

“In the Silvera case, the experts had the benefit of a sample bullet fired from his licensed gun stored within the Firearm Licensing Authority’s (FLA) ballistic storage system. This system prevented subsequent damaging of the barrel from impeding the expert from getting a match with the FLA’s stored sample and the bullet recovered from the body.

“This is beyond First World. The United States can only dream of having an all-inclusive registry of licensed firearms, comparable to the FLA’s,” McKay exclaimed, adding that matching hammer-forged barrels to recovered bullets is an extremely difficult undertaking, which most experts in the world shun from doing.

“In addition, per capita, our ballistic experts do tens of thousands of examinations. The expert who did this match has done more than 40,000 in various areas of ballistics. He and others at our lab are as good as the best in the world because they have been doing examinations of shooting incidents more in keeping with a country at war.

“Few countries, if any, have our rate of homicide unless they are involved in a war in which case ballistic comparisons are not done for every shooting,” he added.

McKay said Jamaica’s high crime rate has resulted in all-round proficiency from police operations to operating theatres and the courtroom.

“Our trauma surgeons are better at treating gunshot injuries. Our prosecutors handle volumes that are more than any environment I have ever studied. Our special squads are the best in high-risk entry into small wooden houses than any other units internationally because each of our units make up to 1,000 such entries per year.

“Per capita, no First World country has the individual investigative load of our homicide investigators and few, if any, have our scene of crime load. God knows, these gangs give us a lot of practice.

“For the Silvera case, the ballistic match was the fundamental element, which turned out to be correct, based on the eventual plea but, ironically, we have become better because we are creatures of habit and practice,” noted McKay.

ainsley.walters@gleanerjm.com