The second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland in Saint John is winding down with the defence delivering its closing argument ahead of the Crown.
Defence lawyer Alan Gold telling the jury that they are no closer to knowing who killed Richard Oland today than they were when they walked into Harbour Station for jury selection on September 8.
Gold arguing that whoever did this planned to attack Richard Oland in advance and that a problem with the Crown’s case is that Dennis Oland dropped by to see his father at his office while there were witnesses there, saying that if you planned to attack Richard Oland you would wait until any possible witnesses had left.
He also told the jury that the time line doesn’t add up with Anthony Shaw’s testimony about hearing thumping and pounding noises from upstairs in the building on the evening of July 6, 2011 between 7:30pm and 7:45pm when Dennis Oland was in the Kennebecasis Valley running errands. Gold claims the Crown would have to persuade the jury that Shaw’s testimony is wrong beyond a resonable doubt in order to find Dennis Oland guilty.
Gold telling the jury that Dennis Oland did not have to testify, he could have sat down and stayed silent throughout the course of the trial but he didn’t. Gold saying that Dennis Oland’s testimony was candid and forthright.
Gold saying Dennis’ confusion during his taped police interview with Constable Stephen Davidson has to be the honest confusion of an innocent person as someone who had killed Richard Oland the evening before would have prepared a polished, easy-flowing story. Gold also notes that if Dennis Oland had wanted to lie, he didn’t have to say he went back to his father’s office a third time and that no one would have known.
Gold says Dennis’ mistake about what jacket he was wearing on July 6, 2011 and the dry cleaning of the clothing including the brown jacket provides absolutely no evidence of an attempt to intentionally lie to police or attempt to hide evidence.
The jury still has 13 members and Justice Jack Walsh saynig that he has to discharge one of them and will do so by random draw near the end of his final instruction “in a couple days time.” He says this will happen at the earliest sometime on Monday.
65 days have been set aside for the murder trial of Dennis Oland, accused of killing his father, high-profile businessman Richard Oland. The trial has heard that as of July 6, 2011, the day before Richard Oland’s bludgeoned body was discovered face down in a pool of blood in his investment firm office in uptown Saint John, the combined total of Richard Oland’s companies was about $36-million.
CHSJ News reporter Laura Lyall is covering the Dennis Oland trial and is live-tweeting from the courtroom. You can follow along by going to the CHSJ News Twitter page or the Wave News Twitter page.
