CLOSING ARGUMENTS HEARD IN OLAND TRIAL

SAINT JOHN, N. B. • The lack of physical evidence connecting Dennis Oland to the scene of his father’s bloody murder and no clear motive means the jury deciding his fate must find him not guilty, the defence argued Monday.

Both sides made their final arguments to the jury on the same day, with Crown attorney P.J. Veniot telling the Court of Queen’s Bench that Dennis Oland was the last person to see his father alive and had opportunity to kill him.

“The identity of the person who killed Richard Oland is known to you. It’s Dennis Oland,” he said.

“The Crown submits it cannot be anyone else.”

But defence lawyer Alan Gold said the jury should reach a notguilty verdict, adding that at the end of the three-month trial they are no closer to knowing who killed Richard Oland than they were at the start.

Dennis Oland pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of his father, wellknown businessman Richard Oland.

The 69-year-old was found face down in a pool of blood in his Canterbury Street office in Saint John, N.B., on July 7, 2011. The jury has heard he suffered 45 blunt and sharp-force wounds to his head, neck and hands, though no weapon was ever found.

Gold said the Crown hasn’t produced a “shred of evidence that would produce the kind of emotion that would lead to the brutal killing of Richard Oland.”

The police investigation found no forensic evidence to point to Dennis Oland, he said. The hairs found in Richard Oland’s hands did not match his son’s DNA and there was nothing under the elder Oland’s fingernails to implicate Dennis Oland, Gold said.