Witness tells court she saw accused take man into bush

A woman told a Regina jury on Thursday she watched as a group of males she was with led Shawn Roderick Douglas into a bush outside Regina.

Not long after, they returned without him.

The Crown’s theory, as provided early in the trial to a Court of Queen’s Bench jury, is that the males — among them Johnathon Nelson Peepeetch, 26, Dennis Calvin Thompson, 35, and Joshua Duane Wilson, 26 — beat the 54-year-old man to death on the morning of Aug. 7, 2014.

On Thursday, the jury heard from a woman who told the court she was sitting nearby in a vehicle when that happened, detailing a series of events that began the night before when she and two relatives ran into Douglas at a Victoria Avenue restaurant.

As with several other witnesses who have testified at the first-degree murder trial, the woman cannot be identified due to a courtimposed publication ban.

She told the court she was visiting Regina and was spending the evening with a male and female relative when, late that night, they went to Triple 8 Pizza. There, they ran into Douglas, who was known to her female relative.

Looking at surveillance video, the woman identified herself, her female relative and Douglas sitting at a table and, later, buying food, pop and alcohol before leaving.

The woman said she and her three companions decided to head over to a house on Toronto Street after encountering several people in a vehicle parked outside the restaurant — among them Wilson and Thompson. The woman said her female relative wanted to get some cocaine and that Douglas had the money to pay for it.

The woman said Wilson, her female

I don’t remember who started hitting him ... I just remember Johnathon kicking him in the face a couple times.

relative and Douglas left the Toronto Street house at one point to go to the bank. The situation took a violent turn when they returned, she told the court.

She said a group of males showed up, including Peepeetch, whom she’d known for about a decade. While she was uncertain about the order of certain events, she recounted having witnessed an assault on Douglas.

“I don’t remember who started hitting him...,” she said, telling the court she recalled his head being covered by a bloody pillowcase at some point. “I just remember Johnathon kicking him in the face a couple times.”

She said she and her male relative stayed in the kitchen while Douglas was being assaulted, although she said she saw part of it when she peeked around the corner.

The woman told the court several males took Douglas out later, with someone in the group stating, “We’ve got to get rid of this guy.” The woman said her male relative ran off, and that she and her female relative wanted to leave but were told they had to come along.

“Joshua said we couldn’t go anywhere because we’d seen too much,” she said.

She testified Douglas was initially placed into the back seat of a car, but was eventually removed and put into the trunk. Occupants of that car and Douglas’s SUV then headed out of town, past the refinery, and stopped by a treed area.

The woman said all three accused, along with a couple of others, took Douglas down to the bush, leaving the two women and one of the males behind in the vehicles.

“They didn’t take long,” she said, telling the jury one of the other males returned “all bloody” while Wilson was “freaking out” over what they were going to do.

The woman said she later showed police where Douglas’s body had been left.