Police found DNA on farm
Crown says grudge led to deaths of three victims on acreage
Warning: Disturbing content.
Four days after the disappearance of a Calgary couple and their little grandson, police found a smouldering burn barrel on Douglas Garland’s parents’ farm, a prosecutor said Monday.
Inside the barrel, investigators discovered bones and a small tooth, just the tip of the iceberg of evidence found on the Garland property northeast of Calgary, Crown lawyer Vicki Faulkner said in her opening address.
“Evidence is found all over the property,” Faulkner told a threewoman, 11-man jury presiding over Garland’s triple-murder trial.
Garland, 56, faces three counts of first-degree murder in connection with the June 30, 2014, disappearance of Alvin, 66, and Kathy Liknes, 53, and their grandson, five-yearold Nathan O’Brien.
Faulkner said the Crown will present evidence showing Garland plotted the couple’s killing after stewing for years over a grudge he held against Alvin over a pump patent.
She said Garland was angry Liknes had patented the pump in his name even though the accused had done some work on it.
“What you will come to see and hear is that the accused held a grudge that lasted for years against Alvin Liknes and that he did, through Internet searches, keep tabs on both Alvin and Kathryn Liknes,” the prosecutor said.
“A grudge about a patent that Alvin Liknes filed for a pump, a pump that Douglas Garland did some work on. A pump that never made any real money, a pump that didn’t make anyone famous.”
Faulkner said Garland was forced to act on his grudge because the couple were retiring and moving out of Calgary.
She said advertisement soft he sale of the couple’s furniture “spurred the accused into action. Action that took the form of obsessive and methodical planning — planning that led to the violent death of Alvin, Kathryn and Nathan.”
Faulkner said a big break in the case came from the wife of Alvin’s son Allen, Patti Garland, who mentioned her father owned a truck matching the description of one seen in the area of the disappearance — one driven almost exclusively by her brother, Douglas.
The information led police to the Garland property, she said.
“DNA of all three (victims) was found,” she told jurors. “DNA of both Alvin and Nathan is found on a saw. DNA of Kathryn is found on meat hooks.”
“In the residence and in the outbuildings weapons were found, multiple knives, guns, blackjacks and restraints of all types, including handcuffs and leather restraints.”
Faulkner said investigators also found evidence of Garland conducting “meticulous, painstaking research. Research about murder and how to kill without emotion.”
The prosecutor said it’s the Crown’s theory all three victims were removed from the Liknes’ Parkhill residence in southwest Calgary and taken to the Garland farm.
“The three individuals were violently removed from their beds and taken to the Garland farm and killed,” she said.
Meanwhile, the Crown’s first witness was the couple’s daughter, Jennifer O’Brien, who had left her son at their home for a sleepover shortly before they disappeared.
O’Brien said she and her younger son, Max, 1, also intended to sleep at the home that night, but the boy was too restless so she took him home.
When she returned the following morning, she found a bloodied residence and no sign of the three victims.
“Throughout the whole house it was just like a bloody scene,” O’Brien testified. “There was pools of blood on the side of the bed and on the wall and all throughout the kitchen.”
She went outside and called her husband and told him: “My son ... my family’s been murdered and he’s taken the bodies.”
O’Brien said she called police who told her to get into her car and lock herself in. She told court that the police officer seized the running shoes she was wearing that day.
“They noticed they were covered in blood and hair which I think was Nathan’s.”
Under cross-examination, O’Brien said she had never mentioned before Monday her comments about her family being murdered.
“From what I saw and what my heart told me, I knew my family was murdered. People kept telling me that, ‘No, they could be missing,’ which raised my hopes, but deep down inside I knew that they were murdered.”
The trial is scheduled for five weeks.