Crown divulges case at start of murder trial
DNA, shoe impressions, video surveillance and a vehicle will be important pieces of evidence in the Crown’s case against a Langley man accused of murder.
A jury trial for Davey Mato Butorac began in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster on Monday. Butorac is charged with the second-degree murder of 50-year-old Sheryl Lynn Koroll, who was found dead on July 7, 2007.
In her statement to the jury, Crown prosecutor Wendy Dawson said the tragic case involves a woman who “had the misfortune of resorting to prostitution to support her addiction to crack cocaine.”
On the evening of July 6, 2007, Koroll kissed and hugged her parents goodbye before leaving the small Langley apartment where she lived with them. She said she would see them the next morning.
According to telephone records, Koroll called her drug dealer at 1:26 a.m. on July 7 to arrange to buy some drugs at a convenience store a few blocks from her parents’ home.
Koroll met the man and bought $40 worth of crack.
Shortly before 2 a.m., a white Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 was captured on surveillance video entering the Mufford Industrial Park, north of where Koroll was last seen. The video shows someone getting out the driver’s side of the car and opening the passenger door and the trunk.
Dawson said the Crown’s theory is that Koroll’s body was dumped near an excavator. As the vehicle left, it ran over Koroll’s right wrist and left a tire impression.
The car was at the industrial park for about three minutes and video did not capture its licence plate.
At about 2:46 a.m., the car returned and remained for about four minutes.
Dawson said it’s the Crown’s theory that the killer came back to move Koroll’s body and leave it “in a sexually displayed manner.” Dawson said it could have been done to throw off investigators or for some reason known only to the killer.
Koroll’s body was found at about 6 a.m. by two welders arriving for work.
An autopsy showed Koroll suffered cuts, scrapes and bruises on her head, neck and back. She also had a skull fracture and significant underlying brain injury caused by a minimum of five blunt-force injuries to her head.
Police investigated for months and eventually closed in on Butorac as a suspect. His home and vehicle — a white Chevrolet Cavalier Z24 — were searched in October 2007.
Dawson said that Koroll’s DNA was found on the lower part of the front passenger door and in three tiny drops of blood on the underside of the trunk.