Trial in drug dealer’s death to resume in September

The second-degree murder trial of a Calgary man in a cold-case homicide delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic is now back on track.

Defence lawyer Adriano Iovinelli appeared in Court of Queen’s Bench Friday via a video link and scheduled a five-day continuance in the trial of Terrance Wardale beginning Sept. 21.

The court is now again setting trials and continuations of previously started hearings.

Wardale’s trial began March 2, just days before the pandemic all but shut down the Courts Centre. Justice Blair Nixon was able to give a ruling April 8, on the admissibility of Wardale’s confession to an undercover officer, but the case was otherwise stalled until Friday. Wardale, 63, is charged with second-degree murder in the 2001 shooting of drug dealer Paul Hepher.

Wardale told a Calgary police officer posing as a business associate of the accused’s that he rode his bicycle to near where Hepher lived in the northwest in either late February or early March.

Wardale said he entered Hepher’s home wearing a mask. The two men struggled, with Hepher pulling Wardale’s mask off.

It was then Wardale said he shot the man once in the head.

In ruling the April 2017 confession admissible, Nixon said there was nothing done in the undercover operation which made his statement unreliable.