Police officers give evidence At City murder Trial
Less than 12 hours after allegedly beating and stabbing his girlfriend to death, a Windsor man found himself pacing restlessly back and forth inside a police holding cell located inside Caesars Windsor. Within a minute after police officers entered the holding cell, John Wayne Pierre, wearing blood-stained overalls, offered to tell them where a body was located in exchange for a drink and a cigarette, a Superior Court jury was told on Tuesday.
Pierre, 49, is on trial facing a charge of second-degree murder for the Nov. 1, 2016, death of his girlfriend, Lesley Watterworth, in a mid-afternoon attack that occurred in the upper unit of 925 Curry Ave.
Several Windsor police officers on Tuesday testified in court about their conversations with Pierre — both inside the casino’s police holding cell shortly after 1 a.m. and about a 45 minutes later at the downtown police station. Security video was also played to the jury showing Pierre’s actions while in custody. Ontario Provincial Police took Pierre into custody at the casino after he was unable to pay his food bills. They contacted Windsor police after learning he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest for previously assaulting Watterworth.
Const. Scott Amlin of Windsor police testified how as soon as he entered the casino’s holding cell, he quickly noticed “a great deal of red stains” on overalls Pierre was wearing underneath a suit jacket. Amlin told the jury his initial question to Pierre was: “Are you hurt or is that paint or something ?” “That’s not paint, that’s blood,” was Pierre’s response, according to Amlin. “Get me a drink and smoke and I will show you where the body was.”
Officers immediately took Pierre’s response seriously, Amlin testified. “I believed he may have killed somebody or was present when somebody was killed,” he told the court.
He described Pierre throughout the brief conversation of a few minutes as being “jittery, restless with movements that were exaggerated.”
Pierre’s defence lawyer Ken Marley has attempted to show the jury Pierre was intoxicated during the day of the alleged murder. During cross-examination, he questioned Amlin on whether his client’s movements during the encounter were consistent with someone who had used drugs, possibly cocaine or methamphetamine.
Amlin, clarifying he was no drug-use expert, agreed the movements were similar, but that he did not smell alcohol or marijuana during his close contact with Pierre. Windsor police Const. Giovanni Montino-Young detailed how he was responsible for collecting Pierre’s clothing as evidence soon after he arrived at the police station at around 1:45 a.m. He bagged and sealed each piece of clothing. In front of the jury, the officer, wearing black rubber gloves, opened the half-dozen sealed bags one at a time in court Tuesday and held up each piece of Pierre’s clothing — culminating with the bloodstained overalls.
Staff Sgt. Karel Degraaf testified how he was among the first to have contact with Pierre after he was transferred to the downtown police station. He escorted the handcuffed accused into a small room after seeing blood on his pant leg with “a concentration that was heavy.”