Only killer could know where body would be, says Crown
Closing addresses given at trial of man accused of killing girlfriend in 2015
Murder suspect Kevin Rubletz knew something only the killer would, the location of his girlfriend’s body, a prosecutor said Wednesday.
In his closing address to a Calgary Court of Queen’s Bench jury, Crown lawyer Shane Parker said Rubletz suggested the significance of the rural area around Balzac weeks before Jessica Newman’s body was found there.
“Rubletz injected Balzac into the storyline within days of Jessica going missing,” Parker told the five men and six women deciding the accused killer’s fate.
“Police didn’t know the significance at the time,” Parker said. “You do.” Rubletz, 33, is charged with second-degree murder in the March 2015 killing of Newman, whose badly decomposed and partially naked body was found northeast of the CrossIron Mills mall in Balzac on May 4, 2015.
Parker, in arguing for a conviction, said Rubletz had to reveal he’d gone to the Balzac area the night of March 10, 2015, after police raised the possibility CCTV and cellphone records could track his movements.
In a March 16 interview, Rubletz said he’d driven from Forest Lawn — after picking up Newman at work and driving her home — to Balzac to clear his head after she’d kissed him on the cheek.
He told police the peck left him wondering about their on-again, off-again relationship and he went on a lengthy drive, to the Balzac overpass north of the city, to think about it.
“Kevin Rubletz is worried the phone will put him not only at Balzac at the time of the murder, but where the body was,” Parker said.
The prosecutor noted that on March 23, Rubletz also told his then-boss, Tim Lambert, that Newman’s mother was feeding police false information about him “driving the back roads at CrossIron Mills.”
“No one in March knows anything about the back roads of CrossIron Mills but two people. One of them is dead … the other is Kevin Rubletz.”
“It is the defendant who injected CrossIron Mills into the narrative not once, but twice.”
Parker said Newman, 24, effectively dropped off the face of the earth after Rubletz picked her up from work the evening of March 10.
But defence counsel Brendan Miller suggested there was evidence Newman’s so-called “footprints of life” continued to exist after that night.
“You have evidence of footprints of life after March 10 … after the Crown says Kevin Rubletz murdered her,” Miller told jurors.
He said Alcoholics Anonymous papers, her set of keys and activity on her computer after that date were all signs she was still alive.
Miller noted police took video of Newman’s basement suite on March 16, three days after she was reported missing, showing a chair in her bedroom.
Three days later, police found Newman’s keys hanging off the chair, even though they’re absent in the video, he said.
Miller suggested Rubletz’s mother, Cheryl Rubletz Williams and possibly his stepfather, Joe Williams, could have been the killers.
He said the mother did not like Newman and was angry her son was going to agree to 50/50 parenting with the boy they shared.
“She loved her grandson and she really didn’t want Jessica to have him,” Miller said.
Justice Glen Poelman will give jurors final instructions on Thursday morning.
No one in March knows anything about the back roads of CrossIron Mills but two people. One of them is dead … the other is Kevin Rubletz.