Jurors shown Watson’s shovel
First-degree murder trial jurors see the shovel the Crown argues Andrew Watson used to bury Lise Fredette.
Jurors saw the shovel Thursday that may have been used to bury the body of Lise Fredette.
The spade was seized by city police from Andrew Watson’s basement after Fredette’s disappearance on Nov. 12, 2014.
Watson, 78, is on trial for the first-degree murder and criminal harassment of his exgirlfriend, though her body has never been found.
When the trial started, assistant Crown attorney Andrew Midwood told jurors they’d hear forensic evidence of Watson’s and Fredette’s blood found on that shovel.
Police discovered the spade while searching Watson’s Payne Street house for documents. They found a handful of draft copies of letters written to Fredette and calendars penned with Fredette’s work schedule and important dates in the former couple’s relationship, such as break ups.
“Rejected Lise when she came to see me,” was written on March 25, 2013.
The calendar also noted the two times an officer visited Watson at home – Sept. 9, 2014 and Nov. 2, 2014 – to warn him to stay away from Fredette, 74.
During the document search, an officer noticed a shovel sitting in a bucket of what seemed to be bleach in Watson’s basement. There was also a scrub brush floating in the liquid.
Det. Const. Ryan Donaldson, a forensic identification officer, later attended Watson’s to investigate the shovel and bucket.
He took swabs from the shovel, samples of the liquid and the “red froth” on the surface of the liquid in the bucket. The shovel, samples and scrub brush were then sent to the Centre for Forensic Sciences (CFS) in Toronto.
The officer also seized four large blue tarps, a yellow nylon rope and a pair of muddy boots he found in the basement, sending those to Toronto as well.
Donaldson searched and seized Watson’s Subaru, too. During the search, he noted dried mud splashed along the sides of the vehicle and on the driver’s side floor.
After detecting several areas inside and outside the vehicle that appeared to have blood on them, including on one of the mufflers and in the trunk, the Subaru was sent to CFS.
The glasses believed to belong to Fredette – found in leaves near her driveway – were also shipped to the CFS after a blood-like stain was discovered on them.
And swabs of four stains in Fredette’s driveway off Bensfort Road – found the day after she went missing – were sent off.
The assistant Crown also told jurors at the beginning of the trial that the blood found in the mother of two’s driveway belonged to both Fredette and Watson.
A forensics expert will be testifying in the trial next week on the swabs and items sent to the CFS.