Testimony focuses on green bin used to move body in murder trial
The search for a compost bin believed to be connected to the disappearance of Catherine Campbell led to the discovery of her remains according to testimony presented in court Monday.
Halifax Regional Police officer Adam Cole on the Central Quick Response Unit was searching the area near the bridge just before midnight on Sept. 15, 2015, he testified in court on Monday as the murder trial for Christopher Garnier continued into its second week.
He said he walked south from the bridge ramp parallel to Barrington Street, searching in the shrubbery. At 11:49 p.m. he received a call advising him that a green bin had been located near the ramp road. Cole headed up the embankment near the bridge with a flashlight. It was an area of bushes and trees. He saw a box and said “the hairs on my neck started to stand,” and “When I lifted it I could see hair.”
He saw the body of what looked like a Caucasian person with a neck tattoo and silver chain. The body was positioned face-down. The hair looked dark. Cole did not attempt to move the body before the medical examiner arrived.
Detective-constable Randy Wood of the Halifax Regional Police was one of the initial people on scene. Wood testified that he lifted up the box and saw human remains with the back exposed from the waist up. Wood saw two tattoos between the shoulder blades. Video footage of the box and the body’s exposed back was shown in court.
While no one has yet to testify that the body was identified as Campbell’s, police have previously stated that her body was found in the area. Garnier has been charged with second-degree murder in the death of Campbell, a police officer in Truro who had grown up in Stellarton. Police believe Campbell was murdered on Sept. 11, 2015.
The Crown has alleged that Garnier used a compost bin to dispose of Campbell’s body.
Other witnesses who took the stand Monday testified about seeing a man pushing a compost bin in the early hours of Sept. 11.
The first witness to take the stand Monday was garbage truck driver Ronald MacDonald.
He was driving his truck alone in the North End in the early hours of Sept. 11, 2015, when he saw a man walking with a compost bin on Agricola Street. He saw the male in front of Gus’ Pub pushing the bin with his hands. He described the man as walking in bare feet with a scruffy face, wearing blue shorts and a red shirt. MacDonald was about two hours into a shift that started at 3 a.m. on Sept. 11. He was shown a security video of a man with a bin and confirmed it appeared to be the same person he had seen.
The next witness was Andrew Golding, whose route to work took him down Agricola and North streets in the morning of Sept. 11, 2015. He saw a person turning off Agricola on foot pulling a green compost bin just before 5 a.m. Golding described the person as a white male in a light T-shirt and darker shorts.
“It was obvious that he was carrying some weight,” Golding told the court. He added that “he appeared to be somewhat hostile,” with “a strange look on his face.”
Golding, under cross-examination, also said he had “a frown, a grimace on his face... as if he was under physical or mental duress.”
Halifax Regional Police officer Jonathan Beer also testified. He viewed security footage from the Macdonald Bridge on Sept. 17, 2015. Footage picked up after 5 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2015, showed a blurry figure walking on the onramp connecting North and Barrington Streets just before the bridge entrance. The figure was also seen dragging the bin across a road crossing on the other side of the bridge. A shadow then appears and is not dragging anything. A bracelet from the Cheers bar was found nearby.