Killer’s bail extended as appeal continues
Convicted killer Robert Badgerow has had his bail extended for a second time while his lawyer works on his appeal.
Badgerow, who was found guilty of rape and first-degree murder, has been living with his mom and brother in Binbrook since his release from prison more than a year ago. His bail was originally to expire the day before his appeal hearing or on March 2, 2018 — whichever came first. But that hearing has still not been scheduled. On Feb. 21 of this year, the Court of Appeal for Ontario extended his bail by six months until Aug. 27.
Now, the Court of Appeal has granted another extension, until April 30, 2019.
The initial reason for the delay was that Badgerow’s lawyer, Ingrid Grant, needed more time to prepare her factum of the case, given its length and complexity. She has now completed it, but it runs 18 pages longer than the 30-page maximum allowed by the court. She is seeking approval from the court to file the extra-long document.
The Crown has consented to the application to file a long factum, says Davin Garg of the Crown Law Office in Toronto.
Badgerow’s case is, indeed, long and complicated. He is the first person in Canada to be tried four times for the same first-degree murder.
It has been 37 years since Diane Werendowicz, a young nursing assistant, was drowned, strangled and raped on the short walk home from a Stoney Creek bar she had been to with friends.
For 17 years, her case remained unsolved until advances in DNA technology determined the semen collected during her autopsy belonged to steelworker and family man Robert Badgerow.
Since his arrest, Badgerow has maintained that he had consensual, anonymous sex with Diane in the back seat of his car outside the bar that night. But that someone else killed her after she left him to walk home.
A jury found Badgerow guilty at his first trial, but the verdict was overturned on appeal. At a second trial, jurors were unable to come to a unanimous verdict, resulting in a hung jury. The same thing happened at a third trial.
On Dec. 1, 2016, in a Kitchener courtroom, a jury once again found Badgerow guilty. One of his lawyers at trial was Grant, who is now handling his appeal. Virtually everyone convicted of first-degree murder appeals.
Over the course of his case, which at one point went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, Badgerow has spent years living in the community on bail without ever breaching his conditions. (He was once a few minutes late for a police check-in, but the court decided it was a minor infraction that didn’t deserve punishment.) Even when the case against him was stayed at one point, he chose to remain living with his family in Binbrook rather than relocate to another community and get a fresh start.
His current bail conditions include standard rules such as “keep the peace and be of good behaviour” and not to possess any weapons.
He must report to Hamilton police headquarters every Monday to sign in, abide by a curfew that orders him to stay in his home from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., and not communicate with a long list of people — including witnesses from his trials and members of the Werendowicz family.
Garg says if the court approves the long factum, it shouldn’t take long for a hearing date to be set, likely before Badgerow’s current bail extension expires.