VANCOUVER – A British Columbia judge has told jurors they will have to decide whether a man who confessed to killing a 12-year-old girl could have obtained details about the crime from police or media reports.
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Austin Cullen is instructing a jury that is expected to start deliberations later today in the trial of Garry Handlen, who confessed to the 1978 murder during a police undercover operation.
Monica Jack was last seen in Merritt while riding her bike and her remains were discovered in the area 17 years later.
Globalnews.ca coverage of the Monica Jack murder trial
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Trial begins for man accused of 1978 murder of B.C. Girl
Handlen became the subject of a so-called Mr. Big sting in early 2014 and provided an alleged confession recorded on a hidden camera and shown to the jury during the first-degree murder trial.
Defence lawyer Patrick Angly has argued Handlen was provided information about the crime by the RCMP in 1978 when he was interviewed and also by a supposed crime boss asking leading questions.
Angly has said the crime boss was referring to a newspaper article about the crime while trying to extract a confession in 2014, and Handlen could have read some information he parroted back and may also have known details about Jack’s murder from a television documentary.
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