An odd start to trial of gruesome killing
They will have a sense of it now, the jury. The oddity of what’s unfolding before them at a first-degree murder trial.
One by one they took their seats on Tuesday morning in what is always an arduous task when the stakes are this high, the charge this serious.
And one by one they were repeatedly ushered out of the University Ave. courtroom so the judge and lawyers could address business jurists are forbidden to hear, matters more commonly settled in motions before a trial commences.
Sitting not in the dock but at the defendant’s table is the accused: 40-year-old Xiu Jin Teng, accused of murdering her husband, Dong Huang, nearly five years ago in their Scarborough basement apartment.
That’s an extraordinarily long time from arrest to trial, even for the glacial tempo of Canadian justice.
At the defendant’s table, Teng, but without a defence lawyer sitting alongside, only a Mandarin interpreter. Though Teng, when she chooses to speak for herself, appears to have a reasonable command of English. She has pleaded not guilty.
This trial might very well extend into 2017, at the plodding pace it’s going. Superior Court Judge Ian MacDonnell, by all indications, will need the patience of Job to get through it, a job he appears singularly suited to handle, as attested by the courtesy and forbearance he displayed Tuesday.
Try as MacDonnell might to shield his jury’s ears, he was not quite a match for the up-and-down popping Teng.
Late morning, after court heard from the first witness — a crime scene draft technician who presented a schematic of the basement apartment — the jury had stepped out and just stepped back in.
MacDonnell to Teng: “Do you wish to ask questions?”
Meaning, of the witness, because to all outward appearance Teng is defending herself, with an amicus curiae — friend of the court — to assist the proceeding.
Teng, her voice rising: “I said don’t ask me questions! I need to make one point clear.”
MacDonnell: “No. Submissions are made in the absence of the jury. Do you wish to participate in the trial by asking any questions?”
Teng: “It depends. If you do not give the context you are risking fooling the jury.” MacDonnell: “Please sit down.” To Teng, the judge continues: “I hope you won’t be saying this constantly.”
To the jury, the judge warns: “What you’ve just heard is not relevant to any decision you have to make.”
Later, after another Mandarin interpreter is sworn in, this one to translate for the next witness, the owner with her husband of the Scarborough house where Dong Huang’s body was discovered in a storage room.
Teng is once more on her feet, primed to launch another objection. MacDonnell asks her to sit down.
Teng: “I have a right to speak on my behalf. You are rejecting my constitutional right!”
All will be explained, in time, to the jurors and the public beyond those inside the packed courtroom.
What was provided, in the “roadmap” opening statement presented by Crown Attorney Joshua Levy, was a bare-bones outline of the evidence the prosecution expects to elicit in the coming weeks. It goes like this: Teng had been residing in the apartment with her husband and their 2-year-old daughter for only a month. On Feb. 29, 2012, Xiaohong (Sharon) Gu went downstairs to collect the rent. Teng told Gu that her husband was in Hong Kong but would be back the following week.
Gu looked around the unit, concerned by packed suitcases and boxes, suggesting the occupants may have been planning to move out without paying, but she didn’t ask Teng about it. Later that same day, while going up to the second floor, Gu heard the sound of a child crying. It was coming from the garage. Gu went into the garage, saw that Teng’s daughter was in the front seat of her tenant’s SUV, improperly dressed for the cold temperature and howling. Teng had her arms loaded with items that she was placing in the trunk. Gu glanced in.
Let Gu, from the witness stand, pick up the narrative:
“It was loaded with stuff. It seemed quite clear she was moving out.”
After Teng drove away, Gu discussed the situation with a neighbour who agreed to come take a look. They checked around the apartment, noticing the mess of things, the luggage, a mattress propped against the wall.
Inspecting from room to room, they then looked inside the storage area, which wasn’t locked. The neighbour saw what she thought might by a pair of feet sticking out from underneath a pile of sheets and empty boxes. She said nothing about her suspicion to Gu; just urged Gu to call her husband at work, get him to come home.
Upon his arrival, the three went back downstairs. It was just after they’d opened the storage room door that Teng arrived back home.
“My husband asked her, ‘What is this?’ ” Pointing to the boxes. “She said, ‘This is just some of our stuff.’ We started taking the boxes down. And in the end we saw something, covering a person.”
Again, but with astonishment, Gu’s husband asked Teng: “What’s this?”
“She started crying. She said her husband died last week because of a heart attack. I said, ‘You ought to tell us, why didn’t you call 911? Why did you do this to him?’
“She turned around to leave. She attempted to flee. My husband would not let her leave. So she went to her bedroom and made a call.”
Gu’s husband called police, who arrived within minutes.
In the prosecution’s opening address, Levy told the jury that, at autopsy, it was determined that cause of death was ligature strangulation. Bleach had been poured over the body. Green twine was tied around Dong Huang’s neck. There were ligature marks around his wrists and ankles, bruising to the head and a puncture wound on his arms. Toxicology tests showed Zopiclone — an insomnia medication — in his blood.
Police would recover the following items from the apartment: a metal hand saw, plastic wrap, disposable gloves, a hydraulic jack, nails, a utility winch, rubber mats, cables with locks and a roll of green twine.
A week earlier, Gu testified, she’d been awakened about 5 a.m. by strange noises coming from the basement, which she could hear through the heating vents. “I heard a male voice saying — ahh . . . ahh ...a painful voice.”
It was just before that time, Gu said, she’d last seen Dong Huang alive.
Levy had told the jury that Teng worked at London Life and was licensed to sell insurance.
In her files, investigators would find a contract she’d purchased on her husband’s life some weeks earlier.
“In the event of her husband’s death, (it would) entitle her to a total death benefit of just under $2 million. She also purchased life insurance on her own life. However, the beneficiary of those policies was not her husband but another individual.”
The trial continues.