The prosecution finished presenting its evidence Tuesday afternoon in the double-murder trial of Edward Downey, with the continuation of testimony from an expert tech crimes officer with the Calgary Police Service.
Downey has pleaded not guilty to two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Sara Baillie and her five-year-old daughter Taliyah Marsman. Baillie was found dead inside her northwest Calgary basement suite on July 11, 2016. Taliyah’s body was found three days later, outside city limits, following an Alberta-wide Amber Alert.
Const. Ian Whiffin said he examined several phones to assist in the homicide investigation, including a BlackBerry belonging to the accused.
READ MORE: Conversations extracted from accused double-murderer’s phone detailed in Calgary trial
Whiffin told court he was able to extract data from that BlackBerry, including a photo of Baillie’s white Ford Fusion with a date stamp of June 17, 2016. He said he also examined two iPhones seized from a grey Dodge Charger that Downey was alleged to have been driving July 11, 2016.
The officer created a map by using location information extracted from one of those iPhones pertaining to the evening of July 10, 2016–hours before Baillie was found dead.
He said phone data revealed the iPhone moved from an address near the home of the accused in Skyview Ranch N.E. at 10:56 p.m. to Country Hills Blvd. to Panorama Hills– all within a few minutes–ending at Panorama Hills Mews N.W. at 11:04 p.m.
Whiffin said at that point, the phone location was approximately 1.7 kilometres away from Baillie’s home. He told court the phone battery was at zero per cent by 11 p.m. and shut down shortly after–so all location information ended.
It’s the Crown’s theory that Downey killed Baillie because she was trying to get AB (a woman who cannot be named due to a court-imposed publication ban) to break up with him and was helping her stay away from work as an escort. The Crown has suggested to the jury that Downey later killed Taliyah because she witnessed her mother’s murder.
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On Monday, Whiffin read BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) messages from Downey’s phone. The Crown alleges Downey was expressing his view of Baillie’s influence on his girlfriend.
The messages appeared to be between Downey and someone named “Jiggy” as well as Downey and “Kukuie.” Their identities were not detailed in court, but texts from both “Jiggy” and the contact identified as “Kukuie” told Downey they had a son born June 2, 2016.
Court previously heard Baillie had dated a man on-and-off who lived in British Columbia and went by the names “EJ” and “Jiggy.”
In one message, Downey told Kukuie, “I’m down to one bitch and she’s square.”
The Crown alleges Downey had taken steps towards getting his girlfriend to work as an escort but she had decided “it was something she was not going to do.”
“It’s for you to decide if Downey blamed Sara for this as well,” prosecutor Carla MacPhail told the jury in her opening statement.
The trial is scheduled for three weeks. Downey’s defence lawyer has told court he will begin presenting his case Wednesday morning.
Watch below: (From Nov. 30, 2018) There was an emotional end to an extremely difficult week for family and friends of Sara Baillie and her five-year-old daughter Taliyah Marsman. Edward Downey has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the deaths of the mother and daughter. Nancy Hixt reports.