A Saskatoon courtroom heard Wednesday afternoon police had identified Douglas Hales as a person of interest a few weeks after Daleen Bosse went missing in May 2004.
However, another four years would elapse before the investigation was escalated to an RCMP undercover police sting operation and subsequent murder charge.
The Mr. Big undercover operation began working on Hales in May 2008 and by August of that year they had located Bosse’s remains and laid a first-degree murder charge in the death of the 25-year-old Onion Lake Cree Nation woman.
The trial was shown an hour-and-a-half video taped statement an emotionless Hales gave to police in April 2005.
In the video, Hales says he met Bosse for the first time while working as a doorman at Jax nightclub in Saskatoon on a Tuesday night in May 2004.
He says Bosse came to the club in the early evening, struck up a conversation and he bought her a drink.
Hales adds she mistook him for being for being Métis and he initially thought Bosse might be prostitute after she said she was in “sales.”
He says Bosse stayed at Jax until closing time and offered him a ride home, which he accepted.
They then drove around Saskatoon for the next couple of hours during which time she asked him to accompany her to a party on west side of the city a few times but he refused.
He adds at some point Bosse also asked him to assist her in a move to Regina the following day but he also refused this request.
The night apparently ended with a conversation in Bosse’s car in the parking lot of the Extra Foods grocery store in Sutherland and Hales leaving to make his way home by foot around 6 a.m.
He says he felt no attraction to Bosse but that she did give him a kiss on the cheek.
Upon further questioning from an officer, Hales alters his story to say that they did also make a stop at the trailer he was living in Sutherland at the time so he could change out of his work shoes into something more casual.
In the morning, defence lawyer Bob Hrycan continued to try and chip away at the credibility of the Mr. Big operation.
During cross-examination of an undercover RCMP officer, Hrycan said Mr. Big offered the unemployed Hales everything he didn’t have – a career, friends and lots of money in exchange for playing the role of a hardened criminal.
He went on to imply police essentially coerced Hales into confessing to Bosse’s murder with the promise of a $22,000 pay off for an upcoming job and to remain with the fictitious criminal organization.