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Expert: Spots on accused man’s jacket resembled blood spray from gunshot wound

Jay Dill (left) and Devon Hewey are on trial, accused of the premeditated murder of Randy Robinson.

Misting patterns resembling the spray of blood from a gunshot wound were found on a jacket taken from accused killer Jay Dill, Supreme Court heard.Mr Dill, 23, along with 24-year-old Devon Hewey stand accused of the premeditated murder of Randy Robinson, and using a firearm to commit the act. Both have denied the charges.Mr Robinson was fatally shot on March 31, 2011, on Border Lane North in Devonshire.Testifying yesterday, blood stain expert Jan Johnson said as part of the investigation she received numerous items of clothing to test for blood and gun shot residue (GSR), including a black jacket taken from Mr Dill the morning after the shooting.After taking multiple swabs for DNA and GSR, she said she used Blue Star Forensics on the jacket, which she described as a last resort test for blood.“It’s a chemical which, in the presence of blood, will light up on it’s own,” Ms Johnson said.“I found a misting pattern, a very fine misting pattern. I looked at that before I swabbed it and I resprayed that to document it and photograph it.”She said the pattern, a series of tiny spots less than a millimetre in size, was consistent with “blowback” from a gunshot.“Often times if a firearm is discharged the shooter can receive blowback or back spatter from the entrance wound,” she said. “The blood will blow back onto other targets, including the shooter. It’s a very unique pattern.”Ms Johnson noted that Blue Star Forensics also lights up when in contact with some cleaning products, metals or rust.Under cross-examination, she said that she could not guarantee that the misting was actually blood, or how long it had been on the jacket.And asked about the distance that such misting would form, she said it is usually found when the shooter is less than three feet from the victim, but because this shooting took place outdoors she could not make an accurate estimate.“There are a number of variables,” she said. “Wind, things of that nature.”Mr Hewey’s mother, Anternette Cole, also returned to the stand yesterday, detailing an early morning search of her Palmetto Road home hours after the shooting.She told the court that at around 3.30am, on April 1, officers arrived at the house and removed the residents before a team of armed officers searched the house.After a 15- to 20-minute search, Mrs Cole said both of her sons, her husband and her lodger were taken to Hamilton Police Station, but she insisted on staying at the house during the search.For the next three hours, she said she cooperated with the officers as they searched the property, identifying several items as belonging to her sons.Asked by lawyer Shade Subair about a record of the search, she agreed that she had signed every page of the document but that she did not actually read it. Instead, she asked an officer to read the document to her.She agreed that she told officers that a pair of dark jeans and a black collared shirt were owned by the defendant, but told the court that both of her sons would wear the clothes.“If they came and asked me I maybe say Devon because that’s who they were investigating, but both boys wore the same thing,” she said.After the search was complete, she said she went into her son’s bedroom and saw a red and black jacket on Devon’s bed.She said police returned to seize the jacket a few days later and seized a different jacket, which she described as black and grey. Mrs Cole said the red and black jacket remained in the house for several months before police seized it.Re-examined by prosecutor Garrett Byrne, Mrs Cole was asked about the details concerning three incidents in which she said gunshots were fired at her house.She said all three incidents happened “around 2010,” but was unable to give further details as to the date. In the first incident, she said she heard gunshots and Devon shouting out “What do you want with me?”In a later incident, she said she heard glass shatter in the lower floor of the house and found a window in her son’s room had been broken.She said she didn’t see any bullets or any shots fired in either incident, but did find a bullet lodged in the wall near her son’s room following a third incident.Asked why she had not contacted the police about any of the incidents, she said: “Devon didn’t want to and I didn’t see the sense of all the police at my house. I’m tired of the drama.“When anything happens, I really don’t call the cops or anything like that. I don’t want the drama.”