Defence Maintains No Evidence to Convict Accused

Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 13:37

 

 

Defence lawyer Morris Bodnar says there’s no confirmatory evidence linking his client to the murder of an Onion Lake woman.

 

Bodnar made that statement this morning as he and Crown Prosecutor Scott Bartlett discussed evidence with Justice Neil Gabrielson.

 

Twenty-year-old Jarita Naistus was found dead in a Lloydminster motel room on October of 2005.

 

Forty-six-year-old Alberta resident Gordon Dwight Hurley is on trial charged with second-degree murder in the case.

 

Yesterday, jailhouse informant Darrel Lee Nieme said Hurley told him he couldn’t figure out what evidence police had on him, because he had wiped everything down.

 

Bartlett noted police were unable to get DNA profiles on some objects in the room. Also, DNA was inconclusive on items she was strangled with.

 

He said that could confirm that wiping did take place, thereby confirming Nieme’s testimony.

 

But Bodnar said that doesn’t prove anything. Besides, he said, there was DNA on other items, including objects used by Naistus’s lover, Myron Smith.

 

The trial continues next week in Court of Queen’s Bench, Battleford.