The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Victim called accused’s daughter
Triston Reece placed four calls to Tatiana Cox’s cellphone over a half-hour period shortly before he was fatally shot while parked in a car near her family’s driveway in July 2019, phone records show.
Tatiana’s father, Kaz Henry Cox, 43, is on trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Dartmouth on a charge of first-degree murder in the slaying of the 19-year-old man.
On Thursday, the jury heard from a Halifax Regional Police crime analyst who reviewed cellphone and computer data, video footage and other evidence collected during the investigation into the July 26, 2019, shooting.
Reece was shot at 5:32 p.m. on Scot Street in westend Halifax. The Crown alleges Cox, driving a grey Pontiac G5 that was regularly used by his estranged wife Rulla, pulled up beside Reece’s Ford Focus and shot him five times.
Two of the .22-calibre bullets struck Reece in the left temple and went into his brain. He died in hospital early the next morning.
Cox allegedly drove the Pontiac to the South Shore and then set the vehicle on fire in a remote area off Aylesford Road in Kings County, about eight kilometres from the Lunenburg County line.
The Crown has not led any evidence about the motive for the shooting.
Rulla Cox revealed during cross-examination by the defence last week that she learned from police in November 2019, when she was questioned about the homicide, that Reece had allegedly sexually assaulted and pimped out her 18-yearold daughter.
Melissa Macburnie-nickerson, a civilian employee with the police force, compiled a series of maps and charts using the evidence gathered by investigators.
Macburnie-nickerson testified Thursday that Tatiana Cox and Reece communicated with each other on their cellphones – either by voice calls or text messages – 1,481 times between April 2019 and July 2019.
She said their cellphone contact was most frequent in May and decreased until July, when there was “minimal communication.”
But according to data extracted from Reece’s laptop, Tatiana sent him four Instagram messages at about 4 p.m. on July 26.
“Hey,” she messaged him at 4 p.m.
“Listen I know I f----- up,” she wrote eight seconds later.
“Can you come see me please so we can talk and get things in motion and fix everything,” she messaged at 4:01 p.m.
At 4:03 p.m., Tatiana wrote: “I won’t do what I did last time and I’ll listen I promise you won’t ever have to tell me what to do cause ima never mess up again.”
FOUR CALLS
Reece’s cellphone records from Telus show he then called Tatiana’s phone four times between 4:49 p.m. and 5:18 p.m. The first call lasted 44 seconds, the second one lasted two minutes and 52 seconds, the third one went to voicemail, and the fourth call was 29 seconds long.
The shooting occurred 14 minutes after that last call.
Crown attorney Rick Woodburn also got Macburnie-nickerson to explain how she analyzed cellphone records, cell tower locations and video footage from Halifax Transit buses to map Kaz Cox’s alleged movements before and after the shooting.
Last week, the jury was shown bus videos of the Pontiac driving away from Reece’s vehicle after the shooting, turning onto nearby Rowe Avenue and eventually heading outbound on St. Margarets Bay Road in the direction of Highway 103, which leads to the South Shore.
Olivia Zinck, who has a child with Cox, told the court last week that he showed up at her house in East Chester and asked her to follow his vehicle to his parents’ place in the Annapolis Valley. She said he stopped along the way and left the car in the woods.
Zinck said they continued to the Valley before driving to the city and then to East Chester.
Macburnie-nickerson said an analysis of Zinck’s cellphone records show an outgoing call from her phone pinged a cell tower on Canaan Road in the Valley at 9:25 p.m.
Zinck’s phone was also used to make four outgoing calls in the Halifax area between 11:36 that night and 1:12 a.m. on July 27.
Rulla Cox testified last week that her boss, Jason Weagle, had given her the Pontiac to use and that, at Kaz’s request, she changed the licence plate on the vehicle in her driveway about an hour before the shooting. She said Kaz drove away in the car just before 4:45 p.m.
She said Kaz later instructed her to tell Weagle to call his insurance company to report the vehicle had been stolen. Weagle contacted Cooperators Insurance July 30 to make a theft claim.
RCMP FORENSIC ANALYST
On Thursday, the jury also heard from Gilles Marchand, an RCMP digital forensic analyst who processed Reece’s laptop and iphone and three cellphones that belonged to other people.
Marchand said he was able to extract data from the laptop and three of the phones but could not access the contents of Reece’s iphone. He said he provided the extracted data to police but did not personally review the material.
The trial began May 9 and was scheduled to sit until June 20, but Woodburn told the court the Crown expects to call its final witness Friday.
It’s unclear when Justice Jamie Campbell will ask the defence team, headed up by Toronto lawyer Alexandra Mamo, to call evidence.
Campbell advised the eight female and six male jurors they should consider picking a foreperson soon. He reminded them that two members of the jury will be removed by a random draw just before deliberations.