Keith Clarke
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By Racquel Porter
The prosecution's second witness in the trial of three soldiers charged with the murder of Keith Clarke said she accepted that she was going to die on May 27, 2010.
Brittany Clarke, the daughter of the slain accountant, who has been giving evidence since Monday, described the ordeal as a nightmare.
Marshalled by the prosecution, the witness, who was 18 years old at the time, said there are no words to describe what she experienced.
She also described the aftermath of the police/military operation as destruction.
Brittany, who was a lower sixth form student 14 years ago, said it was at the point when she heard the gunshots getting louder inside the house that she accepted she was going to die.
Earlier in Tuesday's proceedings, she told the court that she and her mother took refuge in the master bedroom.
Brittany said they both telephoned the police, her pastor, dance director and neigbours.
But she later told her mother to stop calling and pray.
She said her father left the bedroom with his licensed firearm and returned with it.
The witness said when he returned, he threw the weapon on top of the cupboard before climbing on it.
She said at that time, she and her mother returned to the bathroom were they sought refuge.
Ms. Clarke said after her neigbour returned a telephone call to her mother, she climbed on top of the toilet and began screaming on top of her lungs pleading for help, with hopes of the police hearing.
The witness said after hearing male voices in the corridor, she decided to face the darkness that was coming.
She said she also heard a sawing sound.
Explaining that there is a wall between the bathroom and the door to enter the bedroom, she suggested to the voices that they don't have to saw off the door and that she could open it.
While exiting the bathroom huddled behind her mother, she said, the soldiers began entering in a queue.
She explained that it was about six to eight soldiers, but later in her testimony she said "soldiers like ants" were inside her house after her father was shot.
Recalling the moment she witnessed her father's killing, the Ms. Clarke said she screamed out but the soldiers told her to shut up.
She corroborated her mother's evidence that her father was shot whilst climbing down backwards from the closet and that he had nothing in his hands.
She also testified that she told the soldiers that her father's licensed firearm was on top of the cupboard.
Lance Corporals Greg Tingling and Odel Buckley as well as Private Arnold Henry are on trial for the 2010 murder.
Mr. Clarke was killed at his Kirkland Heights home in St. Andrew during a police/military operation to apprehend drug lord Christopher 'Dudus' Coke.
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