KELOWNA, B.C. – A man on trial for a murder in Kelowna, B.C., 18 years ago lied repeatedly to cover his tracks, says a Crown lawyer.
Iain Currie said Monday that 44-year-old Neil Snelson claimed he returned a belt to a woman at a party, but it was found near the victim’s body.
Snelson also lied when he told his father that he never had a canopy on his truck and then told his sister that he didn’t even know he drove a brown truck in 1993, Currie said.
Snelson is charged in the death of 19-year-old Jennifer Cusworth, whose body was discovered in a ditch the morning after she’d attended a party where Snelson was also a guest.
Currie said only the killer would want to conceal the details surrounding his life around the time Cusworth was found dead.
Snelson told court he’d had sex with a woman in his truck before leaving the party, but didn’t know her name.
He said he went back to the party to return a belt that another woman had left behind after the two had sex in his truck two weeks earlier.
But the woman testified she did not have sex with Snelson during that time because she was working in the Vancouver area.
Currie has suggested Snelson tossed the belt out of his vehicle after killing Cusworth, who’d been strangled.
Snelson’s lawyer, Grant Gray, concluded his case earlier Monday by saying his client did the best he could to remember the events of a drunken night 18 years ago.
Gray said Snelson had no notes to refer to during his testimony last week.
He said the Crown’s cross-examination of Snelson was more of an attack than a probing inquiry.
Court has heard Snelson’s DNA matched what was found in Cusworth’s body. (CKFR)
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