Ex describes relationship with double-murder suspect
Edward Downey physically assaulted his ex-girlfriend and tried to get her into the escort industry where “he made his money,” his double-murder trial heard Tuesday.
Downey’s former girlfriend, who can only be identified by the initials A.B., was also best friends with slain Calgary mom Sara Baillie and considered the victim and her murdered daughter like family.
She testified Baillie once confided in her that a former boyfriend tried to get her into the sex trade as well, but she refused.
The ex-beau, whom A.B. knew as E.J., had an on-again, off-again relationship with Baillie, which had ended by the date of her death on July 11, 2016.
Downey, 46, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Baillie and five-yearold Taliyah Marsman, whose body was found three days later in some shrubs east of Calgary.
Crown prosecutor Carla MacPhail said in her opening address to jurors that both victims died of asphyxiation, Baillie through both neck compressions and smothering, and Taliyah by an unknown mode.
MacPhail also referred to texts between Downey and E.J. that she said jurors may find showed the accused was angry at Baillie.
A.B. said E.J. lived in Vancouver, and Baillie occasionally discussed their on and off dating. “He asked her to work (in the sex trade),” A.B. said, adding Baillie refused.
Downey asked the witness to also become an escort and she reluctantly took an ad out online, and even met with a client when the two of them went to Edmonton.
But she said although she took the man’s money, which she turned over to Downey, she wasn’t intimate with him and left his residence before anything sexual happened. Downey also had an exgirlfriend who worked in the sex trade, she testified. “That’s how he made his money,” A.B. said.
The witness said during her twoyear relationship with Downey he never held a job and she paid the mortgage on their northeast Calgary townhouse and their bills, including car payments on the grey Dodge Charger she let him drive.
Part of A.B.’s evidence was to identify photos of the car, which had four tinted windows and a sun roof. In her opening address, MacPhail said witnesses saw a man near Baillie’s home get out of her white Ford Fusion and take a little girl to a grey car with tinted windows. The prosecutor suggested Taliyah was slain because she could identify her mother’s killer.
“Did Taliyah know Mr. Downey?” MacPhail asked A.B. “Yes,” the witness replied.
“Did she know him well enough to recognize him?” she asked. “Yes,” A.B. said.
The day before Baillie was slain, A.B. testified, she sent Downey a text message indicating their relationship was over.
“I told him he had to go,” she said. The trial continues.