Greg Marquis, a UNB prof, says the death of Richard Oland will now become a cold case.
Both the concerned and the curious were in attendance Friday morning at the trial of Dennis Oland.
Greg Marquis was one of them. He’s a history prof at UNB, and the author of several books on the Oland trial.
He says the verdict boiled down to whether Justice Morrison thought Dennis was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.
“Obviously he felt that the Crown had not met its burden, that it hadn’t proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Dennis Oland killed his father, despite some of the compelling evidence by the Crown, and some of the weaknesses in the defence’s arguments. The defence arguments were strong enough to create that doubt,” he said.
Marquis says he looks forward to reading Morrison’s 150-page written decision, which will provide more details on his reasoning behind the not-guilty verdict.
He says while Dennis’ family got some closure, there are still plenty of questions to be answered.
“The police kind of felt that they closed this case: they found the suspect, the Crown prosecutor believed, and they took it to trial, got a conviction, overturned, and they lost, but we still have a victim, right? Is that going to be forgotten about? Or are people going to actively work on that?”
Marquis says in a sense, Saint John Police have still not solved this case, despite today’s outcome.
“There’s a bunch of things that they didn’t do as far as we know, because the evidence we heard was the evidence in court. But in theory, this becomes a cold case now. The so-called real killer in theory is out there some place,” he said,
He says wouldn’t be surprised to see an investigation re-opened to find more potential suspects.
