Murder trial witness tells of blood in basement

A 30-year-old man told a Regina jury a group of people made an unexpected visit to his house on the night of April 16, 2015.

He said he didn’t stick around, nor was he eager to return.

When he finally did, he said he found what looked like rust covering the floor and splattered on the walls in a basement bedroom. As he started to clean, he realized it was something else.

“It was blood, I guess,” he said. The man — who can’t be identified due to a court-imposed publication ban — started his testimony on Thursday at the trial for Andrew Bellegarde, 24, Bronson Gordon, 33, and Daniel Theodore, 34.

The three are charged with first-degree murder in the death of 34-year-old Reno Lee and offering an indignity to human remains by dismembering and decapitating Lee’s body.

The witness told the court he and his girlfriend were living at the time at a house on the 1100 block of Garnet Street with his girlfriend’s three-year-old son.

He said he got a call on the night of April 16, 2015, from someone whom he believed was Gordon, telling him people were coming over. He said a group of people — including Theodore and Bellegarde — showed up minutes later and asked him where the basement was.

Although admitting he was high that night and had issues remembering some details, he described the situation as “frantic,” with people coming up and down the stairs and Theodore — referred to in court by the street name Buddha — asking the witness for tape, zip ties or rope.

“Nobody knew what was going on,” the man said.

The witness said he went downstairs at one point and saw Lee sitting on the floor, his wrists bound with tape with more wrapped around his head in the area of his mouth. He wasn’t sure whether Lee’s feet were bound.

The man said he recalled Buddha, another man and a woman leaving the house at various points.

For his part, the witness said he was desperate to leave as well.

“I knew the situation was going to get ugly so I didn’t want that kid there,” he said of his girlfriend’s son. “I didn’t want (my girlfriend) there.”

By the time the family left, the witness said just Bellegarde and Lee were at the house and that Lee was still alive.

He told the court he didn’t return right away.

“I didn’t want to go home ...,” he said. “I didn’t want to go into that house. I knew something happened.”

When he did return (he wasn’t sure of the date), his said his house was “trashed” and the basement “smelled like a pool.” He said he found several empty bottles of bleach and, in the bedroom, what he soon realized was blood.

“I panicked, I freaked out, I didn’t know what to do,” he said.

The man testified he cleaned it up and threw out several items as he worried he would get blamed.

The man previously pleaded guilty to being an accessory after the fact and received a prison term.