A witness told jurors that he was asked to look after a gun in the hours after Lorenzo Stovell was shot dead in a parked minibus outside Woody’s.

Christoph Duerr said that Cordova Simons-Marshall contacted him on the night of the murder in September 2012 and told him to come to a friend’s house on Boaz Island.

Mr Duerr took the stand yesterday afternoon and told the Supreme Court that Mr Simons-Marshall handed him the firearm wrapped in a black handkerchief as well as a bulletproof vest because he expected police would “bust” his home.

“I was given a bulletproof vest by Cordova and then we went outside and he gave me something else to hold,” Mr Duerr said.

“It was something heavy and in a black handkerchief. He got it from just outside the house in a pump room.

“He asked me to hold it and to keep it safe pretty much. So I went to my house and put the bulletproof vest and the heavy handkerchief under the mattress.”

Under further questioning from prosecutor Carrington Mahoney, Mr Duerr said that he had looked after guns for people a “few times” before, although not for Mr Simons-Marshall.

Asked if he looked inside the handkerchief Mr Duerr replied: “Yes, after I took it in my house. It was a silver, 9mm gun.

“I kept it until the next night when Cordova messaged me and asked me to bring it to his house for him. I took the bulletproof vest and the gun and I gave them back.”

Mr Stovell, who was paralysed from the waist down due to a previous firearms incident, was shot dead on the evening of September 23, 2012 as he sat in a minibus parked across from Woody’s in Sandys.

Zikai Cann and Trevone Saltus are accused of murdering Mr Stovell. Prosecutors say that Mr Cann and Mr Saltus were part of a group of men that descended on the bus before Mr Stovell was shot and killed.

Mr Simons-Marshall is alleged to have been involved with hiding the murder weapon after the shooting.

Yesterday morning, the court heard that Mr Stovell sustained four gunshot wounds.

Forensic pathologist Christopher Milroy told jurors that the 24-year-old would have died from his injuries very quickly.

“Death would have been very rapid in this case because of the structures hit,” Dr Milroy said. “He would have died within a minute or two of the infliction of the gunshot wounds.”

Dr Milroy, the chief forensic pathologist from Ottawa, conducted the post-mortem examination on Mr Stovell’s body at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital.

He said: “Mr Stovell sustained four gunshot wounds. Two go in through the back and come out the front: having struck through chest organs these would have been the two fatal wounds.

“There was a wound that went through the armpit that probably did not do much harm and there was a wound that went through the front of his thigh fracturing the bone before exiting.

“In addition I found an old bullet that was related to a previous incident and that bullet was recovered.”

Dr Milroy told the court that Mr Stovell’s injuries were “compatible with him turning his back and leaning down”.

“The fourth shot, in his thigh, would fit with him being in a seated position,” he added.

Mr Cann, 27, and Mr Saltus, 28, both deny murder and using a firearm to commit murder.

Mr Simons-Marshall, 26, denies handling a 9mm Smith and Wesson auto-loading pistol and being an accessory after the murder by concealing the gun.

The trial continues.