Mark Grant’s defence lawyer focused on discrediting DNA evidence during closing arguments in Grant’s retrial for the 1985 murder of 13-year-old Candace Derksen.
Grant was found guilty of second-degree murder in 2011, but appealed the verdict and was granted a new trial.
READ MORE: Derksen trial continues exactly 32 years after teen’s body found in Winnipeg
Derksen went missing while walking home from school on Nov. 30, 1984. Her body was found in a storage shed near an Elmwood home six weeks after she disappeared. Her hands and feet were bound with twine and she was left to freeze to death.
READ MORE: Timeline of the 33 year long Candace Derksen case
Grant’s lawyer Saul Simmonds focused the first part of his closing argument on attempting to discredit DNA evidence that was crucial in Grant’s arrest and trial.
The DNA evidence, Simmonds argued, “either exonerates Mark Grant or is inconclusive and valueless.”
He pointed out contamination problems that could have been caused by the lack of DNA protocol in the Winnipeg Police Service when the Derksen crime scene was being processed in 1985.
He also savagely tore into Thunder Bay lab Molecular World that completed DNA work for the case in 2007 linking Grant to twine used to bind Derksen’s hands and feet.
He argued none of the evidence produced at Molecular World was trustworthy, saying mishandled and mis-documented evidence “demonstrate the madness in what took place at Molecular World.”
RELATED: Judge allows crucial DNA evidence to be used in Candace Derksen murder retrial
Simmonds also pointed to the taped interrogation Grant had with police, in which Simmonds argued, Grant repeatedly denied any involvement in Derksen’s abduction.
He also referenced another reported abduction of a 12-year-old girl that occurred in 1985, after Derksen’s body was found.
The judge in Grant’s original trial did not allow his defense lawyer to present this evidence to the jury. This was one of the main reason a retrial was ordered.
Simmonds said there are “a host” of connections between the Derksen crime scene and abduction and the one that happens in 1985.
They both occurred on Friday afternoons, the same gum wrappers were found at both scenes, she was found close to where Derksen’s body was located and there were no sexual assaults in either incident.
Simmonds argued that since Grant was in jail on a separate charge at the time of the second abduction, it’s possible someone else other than Grant was responsible for Derksen’s death.
Derksen’s body was found in a storage shed near an Elmwood home six weeks after she disappeared.
Crown prosecutors will present their closing arguments on Friday.
After that a judge will review the evidence and decide on a verdict.