Vader faces retrial on drug, firearms charges

Despite a “negligent” RCMP investigation that failed to turn over key documents, a Court of Queen’s Bench justice has ordered Travis Vader to once again stand trial on eight drugand firearm-related offences.

Vader, a 41-year-old former oilfield worker, is being held on first-degree murder charges in the disappearance of St. Albert couple Lyle and Marie McCann, who vanished during a road trip in July 2010.

In October, Justice June Ross ordered a new trial on eight charges unrelated to the McCann disappearance, including the theft of a truck, possession of an illegal revolver and trafficking methamphetamines in the Barrhead area in June 2010.

The mistrial occurred after Vader’s lawyer, who is also defending him in the McCann case, discovered two witness statements in the McCann files that were related to the concluded Barrhead case.

On Monday, Ross dismissed Vader’s application to have the Barrhead charges tossed out, arguing that a trial beginning Feb. 6 will give Vader ample opportunity “to make full answer and defence.”

Ross’s decision also explains that investigators of the “large and intensive” McCann case conducted more than 350 interviews and were unaware of the connection to the Barrhead charges.

The RCMP may have been “negligent” and lacked “reasonable care” in co-ordinating the two investigations, Ross wrote, but the mistake was not enough to cause “irreparable prejudice” to the case.

“There is no evidence of malice, intentional non-disclosure or improper arrest,” Ross wrote.

“It was in the public interest that the (McCann) investigation should be pursued urgently and extensively, and it is understandable human error that the officers in charge might lose track of other concerns.”

At the April 2012 trial, court heard Vader and two women spent the early part of June 15, 2010, in a Barrhead home taking methamphetamines that he had provided.

They allegedly drove into the country and stole a farmer’s truck that had been left in a field with the keys inside.

Throughout the day, Vader allegedly carried an illegal .22-calibre revolver in a backpack.

Vader’s next appearance in the McCann case will be Sept. 9 in Stony Plain.