Jurors in the Lagoon Park murder trial yesterday watched a Police detective dramatically slide a broken knife blade into a wooden block seized from a suspect's mother's home shortly after his arrest.

Broken at the handle, the knife, which a pathologist told jurors earlier this week was "capable" of causing injuries similar to the ones documented on the decaying body of American Stanley Lee, slid into the only open slot of the wood block with ease and only protruded by less than a quarter of an inch.

The case against Robert Blair Tucker, James Alan (Spooks) Dill and Terranz (Monster) Smith continues this morning after the court adjourned for an afternoon meeting of the Criminal Compensations Board by Puisne Judge Norma Wade-Miller.

Most of the morning session was taken up by further cataloguing of pieces of evidence collected by Insp. Junior Watts, a scene of crime photographer.

Asked by Crown counsel Cindy Clarke to demonstrate an experiment he conducted on February 27 this year with the knife and wooden knife block seized in August, 2001, he explained that he was in the Police Service's Forensic Support Unit when detectives requested that he retrieve the two items.

"I took a series of measurements of first the empty slot in the wooden block and noted that this was one eighth of an inch by one and one eighth of an inch and nine inches deep," Insp. Watts said.

"I took another series of measurements for the knife blade and noted it was seven and nine tenths inches long by seven eighths of an inch at its widest point and one sixteenth of an inch thick at the back edge which is its widest section."

When Ms Clarke asked "please show the jury what you did next", Insp. Watts turned the block towards the jury and slid the broken knife into the slot with a shrug and a nod.

He said: "I then checked to see if in fact it could fit into the empty slot and it did ? easily."

Under cross-examination, Insp. Watts admitted to Smith's lawyer Ed Bailey that no maps of the Island were found in Mr. Lee's effects and that it was he who flew to Halifax, Nova Scotia with a trunk filled with items to be subjected to intense forensic examination by Royal Canadian Mounted Police analysts.

To Dill's lawyer Liz Christopher's question that "wouldn't a whole manner of knives fit into that slot ? don't you have other knives that could fit?" Insp. Watts said: "It's quite possible, but I would not say a 'whole manner' of knives, no."

The only other witness to appear was Steven Eugene Brown, an administrator at the US Government's prison complex at Allenwood, Pennsylvania.

Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller allowed Mr. Brown to verify that his predecessor had sent a collection of medical reports on Mr. Lee last year to Bermuda Police.

She made the decision over the objections of the defence lawyers, with Mr. Bailey demanding "it should be the person that sent them to Bermuda" that should take the stand to identify them, suggesting that Mr. Brown could not attest to anything about the documents.

The jury was sent out for legal arguments shortly after Ms Christopher said: "I don't see how this witness can come to this court and identify other people's signatures!"

Once Mr. Brown returned to the stand, it was for only a few more questions before he was released, having spent no more than a half hour in the courtroom.

The case will adjourn on December 18 for the Christmas holiday and resume in the new year. Yesterday, Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller told the jury that the Crown and defence lawyers all agreed that during "this special time of year, parents should be allowed to visit" their children's school events.

The statement came after she received two requests by jurors for time to attend lunchtime events today and tomorrow from which they might return later than the usual lunch break time of 2.30 p.m.

Mrs. Justice Wade-Miller added: "We are cognisant of the need for there to be supportive parents and it is important to our young people."