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Victim's jacket had 17 cuts

Matthew Clarke

Songwriter Matthew Clarke's jacket was peppered with cuts likely caused by three different weapons when he was bludgeoned to death on his bed, a jury heard.

Vernon Simons, 24, Shannon Tucker, 32, and Kyle Sousa, 18, are jointly accused of murdering Mr. Clarke at his home in North Shore Road, Pembroke, on April 9 last year.

Forensic specialist Janice Johnson told Supreme Court on Friday that she examined the red jacket the victim was wearing when his girlfriend discovered his lifeless body with 26 stab wounds and severe head injuries. Ms Johnson said the jacket had 17 small rips — some of which were straight, some v-shaped and others crescents.

She said these cuts could have been made by three different instruments, or one instrument which had three different ends.

The jury was also shown photographs of Mr. Clarke's blood-soaked bed with spatters of blood on the ceiling and wall next to the bed — with Ms Johnson saying this meant he was killed on the bed.

She said: "Someone's been there for a period of time, bleeding long enough for it to soak into the mattress."

There was no blood on the tiled floor, she said, which suggested there had not been a struggle in the room.

Ms Johnson, a senior crime scene analyst with the International Association For Identification based in Florida, also gave evidence about a rusty metal pipe she examined.

She said a mould of the pipe fitted nicely into a crushed dent in Mr. Clarke's skull.

Director of Public Prosecutions Rory Field has previously claimed to the jury that, after the killing, Simons and Sousa dropped a bag containing rocks and a metal bar into a pond.

Concluding her evidence, Ms Johnson said: "It's consistent with blunt force trauma to Mr. Clarke occurring when he was on the bed and the area of impact (blood spatters) was the north wall and ceiling.

"Once he's injured, he's lying there for an extended period of time, bleeding into the bed linen and the mattress.

"There was no indication he was up and moving around during bloodshed."

Also on Friday, the jury heard more from a taped Police interview with Tucker.

According to tapes played earlier in the trial, Tucker blamed Simons and Sousa for Mr. Clarke's murder. On Friday, he was heard denying detectives' suggestion that he was the boss of the other two suspects, and that he had the motive to want Mr. Clarke dead.

Explaining why he believed Simons and Sousa had something to do with the killing, he told Police: "When I called Matthew, he said that Vernon gave, was, was talking to him, had a conversation, not conversation that, he wanted to meet Matthew to talk about the, the drug thing that Matthew supposed, supposedly paying him off."

He then suggested Mr. Clarke had told Simons he was going to give him $100,000 to do time in prison over a drugs matter for which Mr. Clarke was not arrested.

Detectives then implied Tucker was angry because he had been arrested himself.

Det. Con. Windol Thorpe said to Tucker: "So everything is, at that stage in life, everything's collapsing, marriage collapsing, you're arrested for drug..."

Tucker replied: "No, not, not collapsing."

Det. Con. Thorpe: "People want to kill you in the States."

Tucker: "We have ups and downs, it's just, it's just, it's just life, you know what I'm saying?"

Det. Con. Thorpe: "You bona fide, your brethren mess, mess you up, you got all reason to want to kill him."

Tucker: "I don't know where you getting that evidence anyway."

The trial continues today.