The Crown has closed its case. In seven days, nearly two dozen witnesses have testified in the Joshua Petrin first-degree murder trial called by the Crown.
Whether Petrin will take the stand in his own defence was still unclear by late Tuesday afternoon.
READ MORE: Petrin trial week two: Witness wakes to gun fire ‘hard to comprehend what was going on’
Each and every day since the trial’s commencement, Petrin has arrived and left in the back of a police cruiser – escorted down the alley by a convoy of tactical team members with the Saskatoon Police Service.
Inside the court room, he sits in an enclosed prisoners’ box with two court sheriffs and has been permitted to have one hand free so he can take notes with a pen provided by the courts.
Court has heard from 23 Crown witnesses – former gang members, ex-girlfriends, Lorry Santos’ husband and by late Tuesday afternoon, it concluded its case.
This after Petrin, said to be the leader of an Alberta-street gang known as White Boy Posse, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in the death of Lorry Santos on Sept. 12, 2012.
It’s alleged Petrin was the puppeteer in the crime and that Randy O’Hagan, along with another man were his puppets.
Both of those men are now serving out life sentences after they were allegedly ordered by Petrin to kill a former gang member but were given the wrong home address leading them to the Santos’ home.
On Tuesday, court heard John Marshall who appeared via video from a RCMP lab in Ottawa. Marshall, a forensic firearms specialist, testified that when guns are manufactured – each gun is made with random imperfections, in other words a signature.
Marshall testified that no two firearms have the same signature or will leave the same markings on expended cartridges. So when police were led by one of the shooters to two handguns, forensics proved that they were in fact used during the crime.
Seven bullets were fired from this gun said Marshall.
Another was shot from this gun recovered under a wood shed along with the other.
When the information was entered into a database, a cartridge recovered in Edmonton was also linked to one of the guns.
READ MORE: Josh Petrin’s ex-girlfriend testifies at 1st-degree murder trial: ‘I’m scared of him’
The final Crown witness on the stand was protected by a publication ban but placed Petrin in Saskatoon around the time of the shooting and the vehicle he brought as one described by police as the get-away car used by the shooters.
During cross-examination, the witness was shown documents indicating that he had asked for a payout from police for information – money he was never paid.
Just shy of 4:30 p.m. CT on Tuesday afternoon, Petrin’s lawyer Brian Pfefferle asked that court be adjourned until Wednesday morning at which time he would state the defence’s intentions and if evidence would be called.
On day two of the trial – he would not say if Petrin would take the stand and would decide when the Crown had concluded its case.
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