At the second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland in Saint John defence laywer Alan Gold grilling a city police officer who responded to Far End Corporation on July 7, the day Richard Oland’s body was discovered, about the building’s exit door to the alleyway.
Gold asking Constable Duane Squires in cross-examination if he’d ever seen anyone examining the back door handle for fingerprints earlier suggesting that this would be the preferred exit route for the killer. Squires says that no one did any such thing while he was there. He was there from about 9am to 2:45pm and was protecting the scene.
Gold had also earlier asked Squires “you’d expect that whoever did this would have blood on them wouldn’t you?” to which Squires replied yes. Gold says “this was up close and front with blood flying through the air with a number of blows.”
Constable Trinda McAlduff also being called to the witness stand. McAlduff responded to the scene with Cst. Squires the morning of July 7 and was a cadet at the time. McAlduff says when she entered the office she saw the body and recalls a large gash in the back of his head. She says she backed out because she didn’t want to contaminate the scene noting she didn’t have any protective clothing on.
She says she was, among other things, tasked with searching for a possible weapon in the area however nothing was found.
Constable Stanley Miller also testifying, saying he arrived at the scene at approximately 9:20am to 9:25am on July 7. He entered the Far End Corporation office and noted the body apparently had been there for a while – saying that he could see the back of the head had quite a lot of trauma and dried blood underneath the floor.
The trial resumes Thursday morning at 9:30.
Reporter Laura Lyall is covering the trial and is tweeting from the courtroom from her account and the CHSJ News and Wave News accounts.
