Texts showed killings were planned, Crown says

Court heard divergent theories Wednesday about what a man on trial for three counts of first-degree murder was planning to do the night a family was shot to death in a rural residence near Edson.

“Mickell Bailey had a plan, and set that plan in motion on Nov. 27, 2015,” prosecutor Brandy Shaw told court Wednesday as she delivered the Crown’s closing argument.

Bailey is charged in the deaths of his aunt by marriage Roxanne Berube, her boyfriend, Daniel Miller, and Berube’s daughter, Jazmine Lyon.

Shaw said evidence of planning is demonstrated by text messages between Bailey and a friend in which Bailey arranged to pick up a shotgun and said he would “hang out a bit” before going to do “a job” and that he wrote: “Gotta wait until it’s dark to do my thing.”

She also recapped testimony by Bailey’s brother and three of his friends who told court Bailey had confessed the killings to them, describing shooting Berube first, then Miller, and then chasing his 16-year-old cousin Jazmine and shooting her when she fell.

During the trial, court heard evidence Bailey took firearms, cash and a television from the home.

But defence lawyer Nate Whitling argued the Crown had not established beyond reasonable doubt that his client was the killer.

The defence did not call any evidence during the trial.

Justice Sterling Sanderman is expected to deliver his verdict Friday.