No Weapon Found On Man: DNA Expert’s Evidence Takes Centre Stage In Caymanian Man’s Unlicensed Firearm Trial

By Alric Lindsay

A lineup of police, forensic investigators, and expert statements took centre stage in the Grand Court today, November 5, 2026, as the prosecution laid out its firearm case against Jonathan Samuel Welcome.  Welcome faces a two-count indictment charging him with possession of an unlicensed 9mm Luger Calibre Browning pistol and five rounds of live 9mm cartridges following a midnight raid by police at a tenement yard at #35 Bronze Road.  The case took a turn when the jury learned that no firearm was ever found on Welcome, leaving the Crown to place a heavy reliance upon DNA testing of the firearm and other items allegedly recovered at the scene.  This left the door open for defence attorney Lee Halliday-Davis to expose critical gaps, including a broken fingerprint machine, a two-hour police delay, and a total failure to interview many residents in the ten-dwelling tenement property who could have handled the firearm.

Tenement Yard Search and Step-by-Step Pistol Recovery

Taking the stand to recount the night of the raid, Detective Inspector Joseph Wright told the court that he arrived on the scene roughly two hours after Welcome had already been arrested and removed from the area. Allegedly, Welcome was arrested earlier by DI Wright’s police colleagues after Ganja was allegedly found in a backpack allegedly belonging to Welcome.

Upon arrival, DI Wright observed an active scene in the tenement yard, where several residents were standing around and drinking. Navigating to the back of the property, DI Wright used a flashlight to search the dark area, allegedly discovering the firearm and magazine hidden behind stacked plyboards.  DI Wright claimed that DC Thomas was next to him when he located the firearm.

The jury also heard critical details regarding the physical recovery of the weapon through the sworn written statement of Forensic Crime Scene Investigator Perthorn Cherubin, which was read aloud in court. Cherubin, a veteran investigator with 13 years of law enforcement experience, detailed his midnight dispatch to the scene at 12 am. Arriving at 35 Bronze Road at 12:58 AM, Cherubin described a challenging, confined recovery site heavily cluttered with loose outdoor debris and thick vegetation.

Working with a flashlight, Cherubin documented the exact state of the evidence, finding a black pistol lying directly on the ground with its ammunition magazine resting on top of it. Cherubin meticulously photographed the weapon in its original, undisturbed state before taking careful steps to prevent contamination. He manually recovered the detached magazine and the firearm, rendering the weapon safe. Crucially, Cherubin explicitly changed his forensic gloves before handling any live ammunition, inventorying five live 9mm rounds found inside the magazine before placing the items into secure, specialised exhibit boxes.

Laboratory Processing and Photographic Discrepancies

The forensic laboratory path was further detailed by RCIPS Crime Scene Investigator Tommy Taylor. Taylor testified that on June 9, 2026, he put on protective gear, including a mask and specialised gloves, before dealing with matters related to the preservation of the crime scene. Regarding this, Taylor explained that he photographed the weapon components and used sterile cotton swabs to lift biological traces. He added that the firearm itself was taken apart by ballistics expert Lisa Mullings, who used PPE gloves.

Under cross-examination by defence attorney Lee Halliday-Davis, Taylor admitted that he used a cotton bud moistened with distilled water to clean and wipe down the internal parts of the ammunition magazine to retrieve samples. Furthermore, Taylor conceded that an alternative set of scene photographs shown in court had actually been taken by another police officer rather than himself. Because they were not his own images, Taylor admitted he could only make assumptions about their exact context.

The DNA Evidence Explained

To help the jury make sense of the highly technical scientific findings, independent forensic biologist Christian Taylor—a veteran with 17 years in the field—explained the DNA results in plain terms for laypersons. He described DNA as a unique “genetic blueprint” or biological barcode that humans leave behind through bodily fluids like blood, semen, sweat, and saliva, or by skin contact when they handle an object or wear a piece of clothing.

The expert explained that the evidence in this case fell into two distinct categories. First, some items yielded clear, single-source matches. A burnt Ganja spliff found at the scene carried a pristine male DNA profile. This exact same profile made up a massive 84 per cent of the DNA found on a pair of black shorts recovered during the investigation. When compared against a reference cheek swab taken from Welcome, the expert said that either Welcome is the person whose DNA was found on the shorts or, if it is not Welcome, it is someone who matched his DNA profile perfectly.  Ultimately, the expert calculated that it is an astronomical 44 septillion times more likely that the DNA on the clothing belongs to Welcome than anyone else—a number so large it provides an undeniable identification.

Conversely, the expert noted that items closely connected to the crime—including the gun’s inner magazine, a plastic bag, and the outside of a black backpack—contained complex “DNA mixtures” where the genetic footprints of several different people were overlapping and blurred together. Taylor explained that when multiple people touch an object, their overlapping profiles naturally drive the mathematical certainty numbers down.

Crucially, however, Taylor explicitly stated that Welcome could not be ruled out as a contributor to these mixtures. A swab taken from the inner components of the gun’s ammunition magazine revealed a four-person DNA mixture, but Welcome’s inclusion in that mix was backed by a statistical weight of 230,000, meaning that it was 230,000 times more likely that the DNA on the inner part of the magazine belongs to Welcome than to three people unknown to him.

Taylor clarified that despite the lower numbers caused by the mixed profiles, a figure in the hundreds of thousands still represents “very strong support” linking the defendant to the item, a pattern entirely consistent with someone handling the weapon’s internal parts. Similarly, a three-way DNA mixture found on the back panel of a recovered backpack showed it was 2.4 billion times more likely that the DNA in this area belongs to Welcome than people unknown to him.

Regarding the plastic bag, the expert said it was 180,000 times more likely that the DNA in this area belongs to Welcome than people unknown to him.

Defence Exploits Shared Spaces and Mixed Samples

During a robust cross-examination, defence attorney Lee Halliday-Davis targeted both the physical environment and the multi-person DNA samples to introduce reasonable doubt. Under cross-examination, DI Wright conceded that #35 Bronze Road was a high-density property containing at least 10 separate dwellings. DI Wright admitted to the defence that upon arriving at the scene, he only spoke to the people who happened to be standing outside drinking and did not question, interview, or search any residents inside the individual homes.

The court further learned that when a 9mm spent shell casing was brought into secure storage, forensic investigators intended to run an intensive search for latent fingerprints. However, because the laboratory’s specialised chemical fuming chamber was broken and unavailable, scientists were forced to abandon fingerprint analysis entirely and pivot to secondary DNA swabbing.

The defence used these admissions, coupled with the fact that up to four separate individuals had left their genetic footprints on the interior parts of the weapon’s magazine, to argue that the gun could have belonged to any number of people living in or visiting the communal tenement yard.

The trial continues November 6, 2026, before Justice Richards.