KINGSTON, Jamaica
By the time police forced their way into the compound of Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries on the night of 17 October 2021, two people were already dead.
A woman lay with her throat cut. A man who depended on dialysis had bled to death. Another church member would be shot dead during a confrontation with police. A survivor says he had been stabbed and shot after his pastor told him that he had to die. Children were inside the compound. Firearms had been discharged. Members were dressed in white.
At the centre of it all was Kevin Smith, the flamboyant and deeply controversial Jamaican church leader who called himself a prophet, surrounded himself with religious titles and commanded an extraordinary degree of loyalty from his followers.
The story sounds like something constructed for a horror film.
It was real.
Nearly five years later, evidence now being heard in the murder trial of Andre Ruddock is providing the clearest account yet of what witnesses say happened inside Pathways that night. Ruddock, a former member of Smith’s church and one of his security men, is accused of murdering 39 year old Taneka Gardner during what prosecutors describe as a sacrificial ritual.
He has pleaded not guilty.
His lawyers dispute central parts of the prosecution case and contend that Smith, rather than Ruddock, was responsible for Gardner’s death. Ruddock remains presumed innocent.
Smith himself can never be tried.
Eight days after the killings, while being transported by police to Kingston, he died in a road crash.
The criminal case that might have put the founder of Pathways in the dock died with him.
What remained was an uncomfortable national question.
How had it reached this point?
The making of Kevin Smith
Before Pathways became synonymous with bloodshed, Smith had fashioned himself into something far larger than the pastor of an ordinary Jamaican church.
Born in Glengoffe, St Catherine, he spent part of his life in Canada before returning to Jamaica and establishing himself in Montego Bay.
He adopted grand titles. Followers referred to him as father, daddy, prophet and doctor. He cultivated the image of a man with unusual spiritual authority.
His past in Canada would become public only after the killings.
Jamaican authorities confirmed in 2021 that Smith had been convicted in Ontario in 2007 in connection with the sexual assault of a 21 year old man. He was sentenced to six months in prison and was also subjected to probationary orders.
Yet after returning to Jamaica, Smith was able to reinvent himself.
Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries grew into an organisation with hundreds of followers. The congregation was not confined to people on the margins of society. Professionals attended. Business people attended. Members of the security forces were among those drawn into Smith’s orbit.
The organisation had property, money and commercial activity.
Smith had status.
Most importantly, he had authority.
Money, obedience and control
After the events of October 2021, former Pathways members began speaking publicly about life inside the organisation.
Their claims were allegations rather than findings made by a court, but together they portrayed an environment in which religion extended far beyond Sunday worship.
Former congregants described a leader who sought influence over relationships, money and family life.
Some said members were encouraged to distance themselves from relatives whom Smith presented as spiritually dangerous.
Others described having to seek approval for romantic relationships.
Former members alleged that criticism or disobedience could lead to humiliation before the congregation.
One former follower described his experience bluntly.
It had felt like prison.
There were also persistent accounts of financial demands.
Former members alleged that Smith expected a person’s first salary of the year as a religious offering known as first fruits. Some said followers were warned of spiritual consequences if they failed to comply.
Documents later examined by Jamaican journalists showed an organisation handling considerably more money than might have been expected from a small independent church.
Members paid tithes and offerings. There were special contributions described as covenant seeds. Church recordings were sold. Religious consultations generated income. Pathways had farming interests and livestock.
Smith also reportedly lent money to church members at interest.
Former members estimated that the church could generate substantial sums from services and consultations.
The picture that emerged was not one of a disorganised fringe gathering.
Pathways had structure.
It had income.
It had property.
And much of its authority flowed towards one man.
The warnings before the killings
There were darker allegations too.
Former followers subsequently told Jamaican media that concerns had been raised about Smith long before 17 October 2021.
Some alleged degrading treatment of women and girls. Others described frightening experiences connected with properties associated with the church.
Questions were later raised about whether complaints had been made to the police and, if so, whether sufficient action followed.
Not every allegation was proved.
Not every claim could be independently established.
But after people died inside Pathways, the existence of earlier warnings became impossible to dismiss as irrelevant.
The question was no longer simply what had happened on one Sunday night.
It was whether Jamaica had been given signs beforehand that something inside this organisation was becoming dangerous.
A theology centred on one man
Former members also described an evolution in Smith’s teachings.
They said his preaching became increasingly apocalyptic and increasingly centred on his own spiritual importance.
Some former followers said they began hearing religious claims that sat well outside conventional Christian teaching.
One described Smith teaching that Haile Selassie was God.
Others recalled a culture in which Smith’s interpretation of the spiritual world became more important than ordinary judgement.
That helps explain one of the most disturbing elements to emerge from the current trial.
Some members appear to have believed that Smith possessed power over death itself.
One witness has testified that he believed Smith could raise people from the dead.
That belief is important because it changes the context in which the events of October 2021 must be understood.
A command that would appear obviously murderous to an outsider may be interpreted very differently by someone who believes the person issuing it speaks with divine authority and can reverse death.
The flood
On Sunday 17 October 2021, Corey James was at home.
James, a debt collector and pig farmer, knew Smith well and had worked closely with him.
There was not supposed to be a normal Sunday service.
According to James’s testimony in the current trial, he was cooking and resting when his wife woke him.
Smith had posted a message on Facebook.
Members were to come to the church.
A flood was coming.
James travelled to Pathways with his wife, his daughter and others.
They took white sheets, as instructed.
When they arrived, James said Smith was at the entrance.
Inside, members sat on the floor.
They were instructed to cover their heads with the sheets.
They were told not to look at Smith.
Although Pathways had hundreds of members, James said there were only about 12 people inside the sanctuary at that stage.
Then ordinary possessions began to be discarded.
Food and household items were taken outside.
Tissue.
Sanitary products.
Other belongings.
Smith, according to James, said these things came from Babylon and would no longer be needed.
Then a bottle fell.
It smashed.
What happened next has become one of the most extraordinary passages of evidence in the murder trial.
Some would have to die
James testified that after the bottle broke, Smith announced that he had received a revelation.
According to James, Smith said those standing on one side of the broken bottle would have to die before the others could enter the kingdom.
James was standing on that side.
He told the court that Smith informed him his throat would have to be cut.
Asked by a prosecutor how he reacted to being told he had to die, James said he was confused.
Another member, Kevon Plummer, then approached him with a knife, James testified.
The knife was placed beneath his chin.
James used his finger to push it away.
He said Smith then called him a demon and ordered him out of the sanctuary.
James began walking towards the door.
Then he felt something in his back.
At first it seemed like a punch.
Then he felt liquid running down his body.
He touched the area.
There was blood.
He had been stabbed.
He ran from the building.
But his family remained inside.
That, James told the court, was why he did not simply leave the compound.
Taneka Gardner
Inside Pathways was Taneka Gardner.
She was 39.
She was a church member.
She was also somebody’s daughter.
Her father would later identify her body.
The prosecution alleges that Gardner became one of the people designated to die during the ritual.
Witnesses have described a sequence in which Smith allegedly decided that Gardner’s blood was unclean and that she had to be killed.
Evidence has also been heard that Gardner was asked whether she believed Smith could bring her back to life.
According to the testimony, she said yes.
The Crown alleges that Smith instructed church members to kill her and that Andre Ruddock eventually carried out that instruction by cutting her throat.
Ruddock’s lawyers contest this.
They have accused a key prosecution witness of giving police an unreliable account and have suggested that Smith himself was the person who killed Gardner.
The distinction is crucial.
The current trial is not deciding whether the wider Pathways episode was horrific. That is beyond serious dispute.
It is deciding whether prosecutors can prove beyond reasonable doubt that Ruddock murdered Gardner.
Michael Brown
Another member of the congregation would also die.
Michael Brown required dialysis.
He had dialysis lines running into his neck.
James has testified that Smith physically removed those lines.
Brown was left bleeding.
He died.
Unlike Gardner’s death, Brown’s killing is not the charge currently being tried against Ruddock.
Police had intended to pursue criminal allegations against Smith in connection with deaths and injuries at the church.
He died before those allegations could be tested in a criminal court.
It is therefore important to be precise.
Smith was never convicted of murdering Brown.
But the evidence now being heard offers a deeply disturbing account of how Brown died inside a church led by a man he had apparently trusted.
Shot in the back
James survived.
His testimony suggests that survival was almost accidental.
In addition to describing being stabbed after Smith announced that he had to die, James has testified that Smith later shot him.
Twice.
During his evidence, James removed his shirt and showed jurors the scars that he says remain from the violence of that night.
He described lying injured while Smith allegedly approached him.
According to James, Smith told him he was immortal and would not die.
James then testified that Smith pushed his fingers into his wounds.
For the survivor recounting the incident five years later, the memory remained powerful enough to bring visible emotion into the courtroom.
It is one of the details that makes the Pathways story so difficult to absorb.
These were not strangers attacking strangers.
The people involved belonged to the same religious community.
Some regarded Smith as a spiritual father.
They had trusted him with their families, money and beliefs.
Police outside the gates
By then, police had been alerted.
Officers arriving at Pathways found the church compound difficult to enter.
Evidence given during the current trial suggests they were met not by a congregation seeking rescue, but by threats and gunfire.
A police constable has testified that he heard a voice from inside the church instructing members to kill police officers if they attempted to enter.
Witnesses have described sustained gunfire.
Another confrontation occurred involving Kevon Plummer, the church member whom James had earlier described approaching him with a knife.
Police evidence is that Plummer advanced towards officers while armed with a large knife and refused commands to stop.
Officers opened fire.
Plummer was killed.
Three people were now dead at the compound.
Taneka Gardner.
Michael Brown.
Kevon Plummer.
Fire from heaven
Witnesses say Smith’s language became increasingly apocalyptic as police surrounded the church.
James has testified that Smith invoked the biblical prophet Elijah and spoke of calling down fire from heaven.
But the fire, according to testimony, was not supernatural.
It came from a gun.
The trial has heard evidence that Smith fired towards police officers.
The involvement of a serving policewoman who was also connected with Pathways has become a particularly troubling aspect of the story.
Investigators recovered items linked to the officer, including a firearm, police equipment and her uniform.
Ballistic evidence was subsequently reported as showing that her privately owned weapon had been fired at the compound.
During the current proceedings, defence lawyers have questioned investigators about how the officer was dealt with and whether appropriate forensic and disciplinary steps were taken.
Those questions matter because Pathways had succeeded in attracting not only ordinary members of the public, but someone who belonged to the institution expected to respond when things went wrong.
Fifteen children
There were children inside.
Fifteen were later removed from the compound and placed under the protection of Jamaican child welfare authorities.
It is one of the most chilling facts in the entire story precisely because it can become lost among the killings, knives and gunfire.
Adults had taken children to a church after being told that a flood was coming.
Those children then found themselves inside or around a scene where people were being killed.
They had done nothing to create the belief system around them.
They had simply been brought into it.
The end of the siege
Police eventually secured the property.
Smith was detained.
So was Ruddock.
Dozens of other church members were taken into custody.
Thirty nine Pathways members later pleaded guilty to breaches of Jamaica’s COVID restrictions because the gathering had occurred during restrictions on movement.
Investigators searched properties associated with Smith.
Attention then turned to prosecution.
Ruddock was charged with murder and wounding with intent.
Smith was being prepared for criminal charges of his own.
For Jamaica, there was an expectation that the courts might finally establish in detail what had happened inside Pathways and who was responsible.
Eight days later that possibility changed dramatically.
The road to Kingston
On 25 October 2021, police began transporting Smith from western Jamaica to Kingston.
He was under guard.
Andre Ruddock was also being transported.
During the journey, according to evidence that would later be considered by a coroner, Smith began making ominous statements.
He reportedly told officers that they would not reach Kingston.
The police vehicle subsequently crashed on the Linstead bypass.
Smith died.
Police constable Orlando Irons, 26, also died.
Two other officers were injured.
Immediately, rumours began.
Had Smith tried to escape?
Had the crash simply been an accident?
Had something happened inside the vehicle?
For almost three years the circumstances remained the subject of speculation.
Then came the coroner’s finding.
Smith caused the crash, the coroner found
In 2024, the St Catherine Coroner’s Court concluded that Smith had deliberately interfered with the driver of the vehicle.
Evidence before the court indicated that Smith grabbed or pulled at the officer driving, causing him to lose control.
The coroner concluded on the applicable standard that Smith had intentionally caused the crash and had died by suicide.
The surviving police officers were cleared of negligence.
The court also found that Smith’s actions were responsible for the death of constable Irons.
Smith’s attorney later challenged the conclusion that he had intended to kill himself.
But the formal finding of the Coroner’s Court remained.
It was an extraordinary final chapter for a man who only days earlier had presided over one of the most disturbing incidents in modern Jamaican religious history.
And it meant something else.
Kevin Smith would never be cross examined.
He would never have to explain Pathways.
He would never have to answer Gardner’s family.
He would never face a jury over Brown’s death.
He would never be required to account in a criminal trial for what surviving congregants say he did to them.
The principal figure in the story was gone.
The man left behind
Andre Ruddock remained in custody.
Almost five years later, in September 2026, a seven member jury was empanelled before Justice Leighton Pusey in Kingston’s Home Circuit Court.
Witness after witness has since taken the court back into Pathways.
Gardner’s father testified.
Former church members testified.
Police officers testified.
Investigators described knives, guns, ammunition, electronic equipment and other items recovered from the compound.
And prosecutors produced what could become one of the most important pieces of evidence in the case.
A police detective has testified that Ruddock admitted killing Gardner.
The officer told the court that after Ruddock was cautioned, he allegedly said that he had killed Taneka and would explain what happened.
Asked how, according to the officer, Ruddock said he cut her neck.
But whether the jury will be permitted to rely on that alleged admission is itself now the subject of a legal battle.
Ruddock’s defence objected to the caution statement being admitted.
Justice Pusey therefore suspended the ordinary evidential phase of the trial and began a voir dire, a separate hearing conducted without the jury, to determine whether the statement is legally admissible.
As of 6 October 2026, that hearing remained under way.
Until the judge rules, the alleged confession cannot simply be treated as established evidence against Ruddock.
A story bigger than one murder trial
It is tempting to see Pathways entirely through the prosecution of Andre Ruddock.
But doing so would make the story smaller than it really is.
The criminal court must answer a specific question about a specific defendant and a specific death.
The wider questions are harder.
How did one religious leader acquire such power over people around him?
Why did intelligent adults apparently surrender increasingly large parts of their judgement to him?
How did financial dependency, spiritual fear and social isolation interact?
What warning signs appeared before October 2021?
Were any of those warnings ignored?
How did a serving police officer become so deeply connected with the congregation?
What protection exists when an independent religious organisation increasingly revolves around the authority of one person?
And why do societies so often recognise coercive control only after somebody is seriously harmed?
None of those questions requires hostility towards religion.
Jamaica is a profoundly religious society. Churches provide community, charity, education, comfort and stability to millions of people across the Caribbean.
That is precisely why Pathways matters.
Faith can create profound trust.
And trust without accountability can be exploited.
The people behind the spectacle
The strangest details of Pathways can easily overwhelm the human reality.
White robes.
Prophecy.
Babylon.
A coming flood.
Immortality.
A broken bottle interpreted as revelation.
Talk of resurrection.
Fire from heaven.
They make the story irresistible as spectacle.
But focusing only on the bizarre risks diminishing what happened.
Taneka Gardner was a woman whose father had to identify her body.
Michael Brown was a sick man dependent on dialysis.
Kevon Plummer died confronting police with a knife.
Corey James went to church with his family and left wounded.
Constable Orlando Irons died while transporting Smith to face justice.
Children were present while adults around them descended into violence.
Those are not gothic characters.
They were real people.
Five years on
Pathways International Kingdom Restoration Ministries no longer occupies the place it once did in Jamaican public life.
Kevin Smith is dead.
The church has become shorthand for something darker.
But the events of 17 October 2021 remain unfinished.
Every day of evidence in Ruddock’s trial is adding another fragment to the record.
Some claims are being challenged.
Some memories conflict.
Some evidence remains disputed.
That is what trials are for.
What is already clear is that the violence at Pathways did not emerge from nowhere.
Before the killings came the authority.
Before the authority came trust.
Around that trust grew money, hierarchy, extraordinary spiritual claims and, according to former members, increasing control.
By the time a pastor could allegedly tell a member that his throat needed to be cut, something had already broken long before the bottle smashed on the church floor.
That may be the most important lesson of Pathways.
The horror did not begin when the first person died.
By then, it had already been building for years.
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