Murder victim's sister-in-law says gunman threatened her
Before she discovered bodies next door, assailant demanded location of `Doug'
The sister-in-law of a Cranbrook-area woman who was shot to death along with her partner more than 10 years ago broke down in tears Wednesday as she described discovering her in-law's body.
Lise MacFarlane was testifying at the trial of Colin Raymond Correia and Sheldon Joseph Hunter, who have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the May 2010 killing of Leanne MacFarlane, 43, and her partner, Jeffrey Todd Taylor, 42.
Lise is married to Leanne's brother.
The Crown's theory is that the murders involved a case of mistaken identity with the couple, innocent victims, being fatally shot by the accused during a drug war involving two gangs. Prosecutors said in their opening that at the time of the slayings Correia and Hunter were searching for a rival gang member named Doug Mahon, who had lived previously in the home where the two victims were shot.
Lise MacFarlane said that for about nine months Mahon had rented the home on the outskirts of Cranbrook, which was next door to the home where she and her husband and sons lived.
In October 2009, Mahon “got busted” because of a shooting in downtown Cranbrook and was never again seen at the home, she told B.C. Supreme Court Justice Arne Silverman.
Her sister-in-law and Taylor then moved into the home and had been living there for about three months before the fatal shootings, she said.
Under questioning from Crown counsel Thomas Cullen, MacFarlane said that on the morning of the shootings she woke up to some loud noises in her home and heard one of her sons, who was also in the home, say that something was wrong. She got up and left her bedroom and saw a man with a gun coming up the stairs of the living room toward her, she told the judge.
“And he came up to me, had the gun to my head and he said, `Where in the (f--k) is Doug?' ” she said. “I did not speak to him. I just had my hands up.”
Then the gunman told her to get on the ground and instead she ran into the spare bedroom and squeezed between the bed and the wall, she said.
She heard his footsteps come into the bedroom and saw his black boots under the bed, said MacFarlane.
“I just closed my eyes. I didn't know if I was going to be alive or dead,” she said.
Shortly afterwards, the man left the room and went away and she went into her son's room and told him to lock the door and go and hide, she said. MacFarlane said she went into the bathroom and called 911 and during the phone call came to realize that something “bad” had happened next door.
She said she went next door and entered the home only to discover that Leanne had been shot.
“I was scared,” said a tearful MacFarlane. “It was awful.”
Asked to describe the gunman, MacFarlane said he was wearing a “green army suit” and had dreadlocks. She said she couldn't describe his face because she was focusing on the firearm.
Under cross-examination, MacFarlane denied a suggestion that the man with the gun had actually demanded to know where the drugs were.
The trial continues today.