Weapons, tools shown to jury

Six days after the people he’s accused of killing were l ast seen alive, Douglas Garland had visible injuries to his upper lip, top of his head, right hand and right knee.

The 56- year- old man, who is pleading not guilty to three counts of first- degree murder, was arrested near his parents’ acreage in Airdrie, Alta., in early July, 2014, and photographed at a Calgary Police station.

Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench Judge David Gates and a jury heard earlier in the trial that police had arrested Garland in a traffic stop on July 4 because they were about to search the 40- acre farm on a rescue mission in which they hoped to find Kathy and Alvin Liknes and their five- year- old grandson, Nathan O’Brien, alive.

They found no one, and a massive search in the days and weeks afterward failed to find the bodies of the three.

The last sighting of the Likneses and Nathan was on the evening of June 29 that year, and prosecutors allege it was in the early hours of June 30 that Garland broke into their house, “violently removed” them and took them to the sprawling acreage, where he allegedly killed them and burned their bodies.

On July 5, Calgary Police Const. David Blackwood, then with the force’s forensic crime scenes unit, met Garland at a downtown courts office. By then, jurors have heard, Garland had had a phone call to a lawyer.

He was calm and co-operative throughout their brief session, Blackwood said. He seized the clothes Garland had been wearing at the time of his arrest, and handed him new gear to wear.

He noted and photographed an abrasion just below Garland’s nose, another on the top of his head, a large bruise on the outside of his right knee, and an injury to his right thumb. Jurors were offered no explanation for the injuries.

The lead forensic officer, Const. Ian Oxton, was next in the witness box. He was in charge of organizing the more than 1,400 exhibits police seized in the case, the most Oxton ever saw in his six years with the unit. He spent five consecutive days at the Garland property, then went back for specific tasks at other times.

The 40- acre farm, just north of Airdrie and since sold by Garland’s elderly parents, is a typical rural prop- erty, with a main house, several large outbuildings and a handful of smaller sheds.

But some of the contents Oxton seized were highly unusual — dozens of pairs of handcuffs, shackles meant for ankles, leather and cloth restraints, leather straps, leashes and the like.

The officer also seized dozens of firearm and handgun components, pistol holsters and silencers, multiple daggers and cutting tools, blackjacks, and a cardboard box filled with lock- picking tools, locks and padlocks and blank keys, many kept in neat Ziploc-type packets.

Many of the exhibits were sent for DNA testing, but Oxton wasn’t asked about the results.

As well as photographs of the enormous variety of tools and weapons seized from the farm, jurors were shown many of the actual physical exhibits, including a large hacksaw with a 63- centimetre blade and two meat hooks, which prosecutor Shane Parker had jurors pass around so they could feel the weight of them.

In her opening statement last week, Parker’s fellow prosecutor Vicki Faulkner told jurors that the search Oxton led on the farm resulted in evidence being “found all over the property,” including the DNA of the adult Likneses and the little boy.

Mr. Liknes’ and Nathan’s DNA, she said, were discovered on a saw, while Mrs. Liknes’ DNA was found on meat hooks.

The little boy was staying overnight at the home of his grandparents, who had had an estate sale of the house contents that day, as they prepared to retire and move to Edmonton.

It’s the prosecution theory that Garland, nourishing a petty grudge for years over a patent dispute he had with Mr. Liknes, was spurred into action by the news that the couple was about to leave town.

In the basement of the Garland house, Oxton found a hard drive in the rafters, documents in the name of Matthew Kemper Hartley, forensic gear very much like what Oxton and his team wore ( booties, face masks and a protective so- called bunny suit) as well as whips and a straitjacket, women’s shoes ( in men’s size 13) and two blond women’s wigs, two books (“Be Your Own Undertaker: How to dispose of a dead body” and “Silent Death,” and, in a small fridge, 36 tubes of dental anesthetic.

The trial continues Wednesday.