KELOWNA, B.C. – A fingernail clipping and a taped confession will form the core of the Crown’s case against the man charged with murdering an 18-year-old from Armstrong, B.C., says the prosecutor.
Taylor Van Diest was attacked on Halloween night in 2011 as she walked to a party but died the following morning. Matthew Foerster, 27, is accused of the killing and his trial began Monday in B.C. Supreme Court.
Crown counsel Frank Caputo said Foerster’s DNA was found in fingernail clipping taken from Van Diest by a nurse that night. Caputo said Foerster later admitted to police he killed Van Diest as he struggled to have sex with her by railway tracks in Armstrong.
He promised the jury would hear the recording and read aloud highlights from the transcript.
The jury also heard that Van Diest wore a zombie costume as she walked to meet up with friends in the north Okanagan town at about 6 p.m.
Caputo said she texted her boyfriend, “being crept,” and a minute later wrote a single word, “holly,” but was unable to send it.
Caputo said the message was saved in her cellphone, which passerby Liam Brown found by the tracks.
The trial heard Brown called the owner’s home number and told Van Diest’s family where he’d found the phone, but the teenager hadn’t reached her destination, so the family called RCMP.
RCMP Const. Milan Ilic said he met two of Taylor’s friends and her mother Marie Van Diest by the tracks and described the scene when the teenager was discovered face down in a ditch off the railway.
Ilic said the friends were holding Van Diest on the ground, and the teenager was gasping for air but didn’t move when he squeezed her leg.
He said her jeans were above her waist, and the left side of her head rested on a steel pipe.
“Taylor’s mom went on top of her,” he said. “She was like, ‘just fight it. You can make it. You’re going to make it. You’re going to survive.'”
Ilic said he called for an ambulance, and he and Taylor’s friends placed their jackets on her. Paramedics and officers arrived minutes later.
Ilic said he pushed the pipe out of the way and helped roll Taylor on her back and onto a gurney. He said she had a deep gash on the left side of her head.
“That’s when I thought something had happened here tonight,” he said.
Ilic said he drove with Van Diest by ambulance to Vernon Jubilee Hospital, where a paramedic poked her with needles but she didn’t twitch. In the trauma room, a doctor pointed out three ligature marks on her neck and what looked like a bite on her lower lip, Ilic said.
Registered nurse Diane Romer also took the stand, describing how she took finger nail clippings from Van Diest for examination.
Romer said she was called to the hospital’s trauma room, where Van Diest was hooked up to a heart monitor and intravenous lines as medical staff worked on her.
Romer said she cut the teenager’s fingernails using sterile gloves and packaged nail clippers. She said the clippings dropped into an envelope, which she sealed, labelled and gave to police.
Romer said she then escorted Van Diest by ambulance to Kelowna General Hospital for a higher level of care.
Caputo said a pathologist later found the marks around her neck were consistent with being strangled, and he noted several blows to the top of her head likely caused her death.
Marie Van Diest and a dozen friends and relatives attended Monday’s hearing. Van Diest told reporters she’s relieved the trial is underway but tensions are high.
“Nerves are shot, but I’m hoping as time goes by that I’ll learn to cope with it a little easier. Just going into the unknown is the hardest part,” she said. “To have it brought forth in your face like that, it’s very difficult. It’s re-traumatizing.”
She described her daughter as an “awesome girl” who was loved by those who met her.
“She just had a way about her. She was a chameleon in being able to deal with anyone.”
The Crown is expected to call 16 witnesses during the trial. (Kelowna Courier, CKFR)
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