Although it was dirty and appeared not to have been cleaned, the car Dennis Oland was driving the evening his father, Richard, was murdered did not produce any suspicious bloodstains, a Saint John court was told Tuesday.
Saint John police seized Dennis Oland’s Volkswagen Golf on July 14, 2011, a week after Richard Oland’s body was found lying on the floor of his Saint John office in a pool of blood.
He had been struck more than 40 times, mostly on the head, with both a sharp and blunt instrument. A weapon was never found.
Sgt. Mark Smith is on the stand this week at Dennis Oland’s second-degree murder trial, describing in minute detail the many objects he collected from the crime scene and the search for evidence in and on items belonging to the accused.
Smith, a police forensics officer, told the trial on Tuesday that he visually inspected the Golf inside and out and identified several areas for chemical testing.
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In addition to possible stains, he told Crown prosecutor P.J. Veniot he was interested in areas that would have been touched, such as the steering wheel and door handles.
But the tests, particularly with chemicals that react to traces of blood, failed to produce positive results, he said.
“I found nothing of interest to this case in the vehicle,” Smith said.
Oland’s defence team has said the lack of strong blood evidence argues in favour of their client.
The most incriminating blood evidence is several small spots found on the brown jacket Dennis Oland was wearing on July 6, 2011, when he visited his father. The blood spots matched Richard Oland’s DNA profile.
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Smith’s calm, careful account of the work he did is in contrast to some difficult testimony last week from police officers who had different and at times conflicting recollections of the investigation.
The former deputy chief of the force, Glen McCloskey, disputed officers’ accounts of his actions, including one allegation that he suggested one officer alter his testimony.
Dennis Oland, 50, an investment adviser, is on trial for a second time for the bludgeoning death of his multi-millionaire father, a member of the prominent Maritime beer-brewing family. He is the last known person to have seen his father alive on July 6, 2011.
Oland has pleaded not guilty. This is a retrial, since an earlier conviction was overturned on appeal and the new trial ordered.
Also Tuesday, Smith said that DNA testing of evidence related to the killing was slowed by bottlenecks at the RCMP crime lab.
Smith had over 500 Oland exhibits under his control, and other police officers had more. But he told the court Tuesday that when he first contacted the RCMP about analyzing samples, he was told there were too many.
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As a result, Smith said the first batch of evidence sent to RCMP crime technicians in Ottawa in July 2011 consisted of just five samples and included swabs of Richard Oland’s fingernails as well as swabs from Dennis Oland’s car.
The officer told the court he then had to wait for the results to be returned before he could send off the next samples. He said the second batch with eight exhibits took over 40 days to be analyzed.
The entire analysis process stretched from 2011 to at least 2013.
Smith said that by October 2012, two private laboratories were also involved in the Oland case.
Dennis Oland was charged with second-degree murder in 2013.
Smith did not reveal the results of the lab tests. That will be left to experts at a later date in the trial.