The trial of a Kelowna, B.C., woman accused of a 2021 castration and killing has again run into a wall.
Gabby Sears, who was charged with the second-degree murder of Darren Middleton, was in court Monday to straighten out the latest twist in a trial that’s seen more than its fair share.
Sears, charged under the name Dereck Sears, is again without a lawyer.
It was November 2023 when Sears first fired her lawyers. She was already weeks into a trial that laid out gruesome details about Middleton and his final hours when she surprised the court by dismissing her legal counsel.
That firing of lawyer Jordan Watt prompted a fitness hearing, and Sears was deemed mentally fit enough to carry on.
The new defence counsel, Mark Schwartz, was appointed. Schwartz was catching up on what had already transpired in the trial when the court was informed another shift was in the offing.
On Friday, during a case management conference, Schwartz applied to be removed from the record and the court granted his application.
On Monday, Sears was expected to set her intentions regarding her representation.
The BC Prosecution Service said that the Legal Services Society has now been approached about having new counsel appointed. Another case management conference has been scheduled for April 4.
As of yet, the trial dates of June 17 to 21 and July 15 to Aug. 9 are still in place.
During a pre-trial voir dire, Sears, a transgender woman, claimed she was the victim of an assault and that precipitated her fatal attack on Middleton.
At that time, her then-lawyer, Watt, successfully argued her jailhouse confession to the killing should be ousted from the evidence the Crown could draw on for its case.
Before the trial went off the rails, the judge heard from RCMP officers and witnesses about the gruesome crime and repeatedly looked at video from the scene.
The court heard that a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and box cutter were found next to the body of Middleton on June 17, 2021. His body was found laying next to a tub in Sears’s home.
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