Lawlor targeted gay man, Crown alleges
KITCHENER — Derrick Lawlor, who referred to promiscuous gay men as “perpetrators,” had sex with two men before fatally strangling one of them, the prosecution alleged Monday in its opening statement at his first-degree murder trial.
Mark McCreadie’s body was found on April 10, 2014, in a wooded area on the edge of Victoria Park in Kitchener, not far from the Iron Horse Trail. Lawlor later told a friend he went to the park and killed a man, Crown prosecutor Linda Elliott said.
“Derrick Lawlor calculatedly carried out his plan to kill a homosexual man,” Elliott said.
Jurors will hear a taped statement Lawlor gave to police five days after the body was found.
“You will hear him tell you what he wants to do with the ‘perpetrators,’” Elliott said. “You will hear Derrick Lawlor say: ‘I want to kill them. I’m angry like some rage is in me — it’s escalating. I can’t stop the urges to go out and want to hurt someone.’”
The Crown alleges Lawlor strangled and stabbed McCreadie, 50, on the night of April 9. A pathologist will testify McCreadie died of “external neck compression,” Elliott said. The Crown alleges Lawlor used a “soft ligature,” such as a scarf.
McCreadie was a separated father with two grown children and a granddaughter. He lived in a rooming house on Agnes Street in Kitchener.
“Mark McCreadie walked into Victoria Park on April 9, 2014,” Elliott said. “He never walked out.”
Lawlor, 56, previously was on contract as a student adviser at AccessAbility Services at the University of Waterloo, providing advice to students with disabilities. He also served on the board of Waterloo Regional Homes for Mental Health. He lived on Basswood Street in Waterloo.
Elliott said Lawlor had earlier revealed details of a plan to go to Victoria Park and look for “perpetrators.”
“He had a plan — a plan to strangle a perpetrator. The evidence will point in a straight line to a planned and deliberate firstdegree murder.”
Lawlor found McCreadie and another man having sex in the woods and asked to join in, Elliott said.
During three-way sex, Lawlor wrapped a scarf around the other man’s neck, Elliott said. The man pulled the scarf off. He will testify that when he left, Lawlor was alone with McCreadie. His body was found the next day near that spot, not far from railroad tracks and the Iron Horse Trail.
Lawlor later told friends he was in the park the night of the death and “he believed he had killed Mark McCreadie, though he claimed not to remember every detail,” Elliott said.
A month before McCreadie’s death, Lawlor was hospitalized with “thoughts that wouldn’t go away,” Elliott said. “Those thoughts involved hurting people.”
He even mentioned that he had bought a knife and rope. But he was discharged from hospital after denying he had bad thoughts.
On April 10, hours before McCreadie’s body was found, Lawlor searched local news sites for “breaking news,” Elliott said. Later, his search found a story on the body being found.
The day after McCreadie’s body was discovered, Lawlor texted a friend with “breaking news,” Elliott said.
“The breaking news that he wanted to convey was that the body was found in Victoria Park and he was the person who did it. He claimed to have experienced a blackout … yet feared he was responsible for the body in the park.”
On April 12, Lawlor took a friend to Victoria Park to show her where the body was found.
Elliott said Lawlor told his friend, “What if I was involved?”
Lawlor, balding and wearing a suit but no tie, occasionally took notes on Monday. The trial, in front of a jury of eight women and six men, will last eight to 10 weeks. It continues on Tuesday.