The lead investigator in the Richard Oland case testifying at the second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland that he never showed a drywall hammer to any pathologist, including the one who conducted Richard Oland’s autopsy, to see if that could have been the weapon used to kill Richard Oland.
The murder trial has heard about speculation by police that a drywall hammer or a hammer-type instrument could have been the murder weapon — which was never found.
Dr. Ather Naseemuddin is the pathologist who conducted Richard Oland’s autopsy, and has testified that Richard Oland sustained both sharp incised injuries and blunt force injuries and that those injuries were inflicted using two separate surfaces. Naseemuddin has testified the round, blunt-force injuries had a faint cross-hatching pattern on them.
Cst. Davidson does not have any evidence that Dennis Oland ever owned or was in possession of a drywall hammer. He agrees that’s something he would have been looking for when searching Dennis Oland’s home, located at 58 Gondola Point Road in Rothesay, on July 14, 2011 — a week after Richard Oland’s body was discovered face down in a pool of blood in his investment firm in uptown Saint John.
Cst. Davidson testifying that he looked around online for drywall hammers to see what they looked like. Miller asking Davidson if he went to the any of the major hardware stores to see if he could find drywall hammers to which Davidson says yes however he did not ever purchase a drywall hammer.
Earlier, Miller showing Davidson surveillance video clips from Saint John and Rothesay including one from Cochran’s Country Market (which can be seen above) which shows a man who has been identified as Dennis Oland in the store. The video is timestamped from 7:38pm to 7:42pm on July 6, 2011.
Davidson agreeing that Dennis told him in the interview on July 7, 2011 that on that day after leaving his father’s office he went home, then to drug store and Cochran’s Country Market and also agreeing that he viewed these videos and they corroborated Dennis’ story.
Miller arguing if John Ainsworth and Anthony Shaw “heard noises between 7:30pm and 8pm and those noises were the killing of Richard Oland then Dennis Oland could not have done it.”
The Crown objecting and Justice Walsh sustaining that objection saying that is for the jury to decide for themselves.
CHSJ News reporter Laura Lyall is covering the Dennis Oland murder trial and is live-tweeting from the courtroom. To follow along go to the CHSJ News Twitter page or the Wave News Twitter page.
