Police officers breached the rights of a man accused of killing his wife when they entered his Lower Mainland home on multiple occasions prior to his arrest, a B.C. Supreme Court justice has determined.
Obnes Regis is charged with manslaughter and indignity to human remains in the 2021 death of Naomi Onotera, a Surrey School District teacher-librarian with whom he had a daughter.
While investigating her disappearance, however, Langley RCMP members entered the couple’s home without a search warrant several times. On one occasion they also failed to provide Regis access to counsel during a brief detention — another violation of his Charter-protected rights, Justice Martha Devlin found.
Regis was not a suspect in his wife’s death at the time of the violations.
Onotera was reported missing on Aug. 29, 2021, last seen leaving her Langley City house the previous day. Someone let Langley RCMP officers into the home on Aug. 29 as they sought clues that would help them find her.
According to Devlin, the officers did not have a warrant for the search, but relied on “exigent circumstances.” Exigent circumstances generally include situations in which there is “an imminent danger of the loss, removal, destruction or disappearance of the evidence if the search or seizure is delayed,” according to the federal government.
The B.C. Supreme Court justice found no such circumstances existed during RCMP entries made on Aug. 29.
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“That the police might have been able to find more evidence, had they entered, does not constitute reasonable grounds,” Devlin wrote, in part. “It was speculative that they would find evidence inside the house that was indicative of Ms. Onotera’s location.”
The issues arose in a voir dire, a mini trial within a trial that determines what evidence is admissible and could potentially be entered as evidence in a trial.
In his application, Regis alleged multiple breaches to his rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the period leading up to his arrest in December 2021.
Devlin disagreed with his claims that two RCMP searches of the house on Aug. 30 and Sept. 13 were made with invalid consent, finding instead that Regis knowingly agreed to them.
She did, however, find that the RCMP “took no reasonable steps to fulfill” their obligation to provide him with access to counsel while he was briefly handcuffed in the back of a cruiser outside the house on Aug. 30.
The Crown conceded that a search of the home that day, and Regis’ detention in the cruiser, breached his rights. It unsuccessfully argued, however, that it was reasonable for an RCMP officer not to provide him with a phone call to a lawyer during the 17-minute detention, “given the rapidly unfolding circumstances.”
Certain details of Devlin’s decision are protected by a publication ban.
It does, however, reveal a number of details about the case, including the consent-based Sept. 13 search with cadaver dogs after which Regis was considered a suspect.
Earlier that month, Regis had signed a permit allowing RCMP to search his wife’s vehicle, as well as provided them with Onotera’s hairbrush and toothbrush to help them obtain a DNA sample.
On Sept. 13, one of two police dogs trained to find human remains flagged an electric saw in the northwest corner of the home’s yard. A police officer picked up an item next to the saw and found strands of human hair on it.
That item also tested positively for blood. Other biological materials were found in the grass near the saw and seized by police.
Regis was informed on Sept. 15 that he was no longer a witness in a missing person’s case, but a suspect in a murder. He was arrested on Dec. 17, 2021 and charged shortly afterward.
Regis’ manslaughter trial is set to begin in May, heard by judge alone.
Onotera has been described by those close to her as an “absolute light in this world.”
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