Homicide victim was being harassed, ‘getting afraid’, sister testifies at hearing

Brenda King said she witnessed David Caissie — the man now accused of murdering her sister — harass her in the month before she was found dead near Herschel, Sask.

Testifying by video link in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench on Monday, she recalled a night in July 2011 when she and Carol hid for two hours while Caissie, Carol’s ex, parked his truck in some bushes and combed the property with a flashlight.

He’d drive by Carol’s house north of Herschel, sometimes five times in an hour, King testified on Monday during a voir dire hearing at Caissie’s trial.

When she and Carol went for drives during her visit to Saskatchewan, King said Caissie was usually five minutes behind them.

She said he cut the lock to Carol’s quonset door and replaced it with his own after they sealed up the storage building.

“We didn’t want him to know where we were,” she said from Dartmouth, N.S.

Caissie is accused of killing Carol on Aug. 6, 2011.

He was charged with first-degree murder in 2016 after telling police, during a five-month undercover sting, that he snatched her from her property, stabbed her and left her body in a field.

Justice Richard Danyliuk will decide if the evidence gathered through the undercover operation, and any other evidence presented at the voir dire, will be admissible at Caissie’s trial.

King said before the harassment started, Carol received a letter from Caissie’s lawyer informing her that he was entitled to half of her house and had put a lien on it.

She heard them fight about it over the phone and Caissie came to the house and pounded on the door, saying it was his property and he could go on it whenever he wanted, she said.

She and Carol filed reports with the RCMP, and officers told them to write down what Caissie was doing, she told court.

“She was getting afraid,” King said about her sister.

After returning home to Nova Scotia, King said she spoke with Carol in the early afternoon of Aug. 6, 2011. When she called her back later that day, her sister’s phone went straight to voice mail — something she said was highly unusual.

Court has heard that Carol did not show up to a scheduled appointment with RCMP in Rosetown at 5 p.m. that day.

Earlier in the voir dire, a man testified that Caissie paid him to lurk around Carol’s home around that time, while Caissie was in Alberta.

A missing person search began soon after.

Carol’s PT Cruiser was pulled from a slough near Herschel on Aug. 10, 2011. Her body was found six kilometres away on Aug. 27, 2011.

Under cross-examination, King said although her sister and Caissie had been in an on-again off-again relationship, Carol told her they did not live together.

She said police looked into several other men in Carol’s life during their investigation, including an ex-boyfriend who King said was emotionally abusive.

Defence lawyer Kevin Hill asked King if her sister usually carried a purse and phone.

She said yes.

Caissie told undercover police he didn’t remember if King had a purse when he killed her.