McGregor has journalled, studied circumstances of MacKenzie’s killing
Since killing Joanne MacKenzie, Robert McGregor says he’s journalled about the circumstances that led to the day he killed her.
“I’d study them,” McGregor said from the witness stand in the Superior Court of Justice in Oshawa on Monday.
McGregor, 34, is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the stabbing death of MacKenzie, his ex-common law partner, in the summer of 2011.
The 23-year-old went missing July 2, 2011 and her body was found four days later in a shallow grave about 230 metres from McGregor’s Lakefield-area home. MacKenzie was discovered with 15 stab wounds, including injuries on her back, arms and neck, and her throat had been cut.
It’s the prosecution’s theory that McGregor killed the mother of their child because they were in a custody battle for their then five-year-old daughter.
After spending 2 1/2 days testifying in chief examination, where he told the jury he acted in self-defence, McGregor’s evidence was challenged on Monday in cross-examination by assistant Crown attorney Lisa Wannamaker. Wannamaker suggested McGregor didn’t challenge 80 per cent of the evidence presented by witnesses in the trial until it came to light that everything wasn’t amicable between him and MacKenzie.
“It is my version and their version,” McGregor told the court, admitting he did lie to a lot of people after he stabbed MacKenzie to death.
Wannamaker pointed out how McGregor lied about things he didn’t have to, and the lies only related to information that could distance the accused from a custody battle and his dislike of MacKenzie’s new boyfriend, Drew Jessup.
McGregor disagreed and said the lies were because he had just killed MacKenzie, and he has the tendency to ramble when he’s scared or nervous.
“I had just done something incomprehensible to me,” he explained, adding his emotional state was “out of whack.”
McGregor also had a difference of opinion when Wannamaker suggested he was keeping tabs on MacKenzie and Jessup to obtain information to use against her in family court.
“There was no spying ,” McGregor said.
However, Wanna maker pointed out that police seized a file of papers from McGregor’s home after his arrest. The files had a cover page stating it was for family and court and inside were printouts of Jessup’s Facebook Page.
McGregor insisted he had never been on Facebook before, and doesn’t remember ever seeing the documents.
Wannamaker proposed the accused was not telling the truth about creeping Jessup on Facebook because he didn’t want police or the court to know he hated the man, and his focus was on getting Jessup away from MacKenzie and his daughter.
“That was her choice. It has nothing to do with me,” McGregor said on how he felt about MacKenzie’s relationship with Jessup.
McGregor’s cross-examination continues Tuesday.