Decision expected in second-degree murder retrial of Dennis Oland

After four months at trial and two months to review the evidence, Justice Terrance Morrison is expected to deliver the verdict in the second-degree murder retrial of Dennis Oland.

Oland stands accused of killing his father Richard, who was found bludgeoned to death in his uptown Saint John office on July 7, 2011. Eight years later Oland will receive a verdict for the second time.

In 2015, a jury found Oland guilty of the murder of his father, but that was overturned after an appeal over the judge’s instruction to the jury.

According to the director of the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies at the University of New Brunswick, many of the main players in the case will likely be relieved to see this chapter come to an end.

“I think (on Friday), most folks in the community will be looking forward to just having this phase completed and then we’ll see where we go from there,” said Mary Ann Campbell.

“Because this case has been going on for a long time, I think it’s one that most of the general community, the professionals involved in it, are just ready for it to be resolved, one way or the other.”

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READ MORE: New Brunswick judge to deliver verdict Friday in second Oland murder trial

In crafting his verdict, Justice Morrison will have weighed a massive amount of evidence, much of which is circumstantial in nature.

Central to the decision will likely be the one piece of physical evidence that could potentially tie Oland to the crime: the small spots of blood-like substance containing Richard Oland’s DNA on Dennis’ brown jacket that he was wearing the day of the murder.

Oland is believed to be the last person to see his father alive, somewhere around 6 p.m. on July 6, 2011 in his office at 52 Canterbury Street in uptown Saint John.

The scene inside the office was extremely gruesome. Blood had been spattered around the office and pooled near the centre where Oland was found, having been struck over 40 times in the head and neck area. During the trial the defence suggested that the it would have been impossible for the killer to walk away with only a few small spots of blood on them, arguing that the small specks found on the brown jacket should actually prove that Dennis could not have been the killer.

RCMP blood pattern expert Brian Wentzell told the court that blood radiated in all directions from the body, but that does not mean that a substantial amount landed on the killer. Wentzell said that he has seen similar cases where a killer was completely covered in blood and others where the opposite was true so was unable to say for sure in this circumstance, a position he maintained under aggressive cross examination from the defence.

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WATCH: Defence says evidence tying Dennis Oland to father’s murder is circumstantial

1:50 Defence says evidence tying Dennis Oland to father’s murder is circumstantial

But surrounding those small spots on the jacket are countless pieces of circumstantial evidence. The only thing known to be missing from the office after the attack was Richard Oland’s iPhone 4, which pinged off a tower in Rothesay at 6:44 p.m., when Dennis said he would have been in the area of the Renforth Wharf not far from his home. That text was the last transmission received by the phone which has never been found.

Also of interest is the testimony of the two men who were working in Printing Plus, located below the Far End Corporation’s offices where Oland was killed.

Anthony Shaw said he heard a loud crash followed by 10 to 15 quick thumps around 7:30 p.m. on July 6, 2011. The man he was working with that night also heard those thumps, but was not as willing to pinpoint when exactly they happened.

John Ainsworth initially told police that he heard the thumps at 8: p.m. but at trial refused to give an exact time, only saying it happened somewhere between 6 p.m. and 8:11 p.m. During cross-examination on the last day of Crown evidence, lead defence attorney Alan Gold accused Ainsworth of tailoring his testimony, prompting an outburst.

“How dare you!” Ainsworth shot back during one of the most memorable exchanges of the trial.

With a lack of physical evidence tying Oland to the case, the Crown set about establishing a motive, painting the relationship between the two as difficult. The Crown used a forensic accountant to demonstrate the dire financial situation that the younger Oland found himself in, suggesting he was overspending by about $14,000 a month during the first part of 2011, while also carrying maxed out credit cards, a line of credit, and a $500,000 loan on his house from his father.

The portrait was of a man teetering on a financial cliff, while his father was worth an estimated $36 million at the time of his death.

When Dennis Oland took the stand he disputed the notion that he was particularly stressed by his financial situation. He admitted that his relationship with his father was, at times, strained, but it was not as bad as the Crown portrayed it, pointing to his father’s willingness to help Dennis keep his familial home during a divorce years prior as well as their mutual interest in genealogy.

How Morrison has weighed these pieces of evidence, the testimony of Oland, as well as his statements to police, where he mistakenly identified the jacket he was wearing on July 6, 2011 and attempted to account for his erratic behaviour before entering his father’s office will likely be central to the decision, says Campbell.

“I would be expecting comments in the judge’s decision justifying the verdict that he does render on the topics about how he’s viewing the credibility of the coat evidence, the blood evidence on the coat, the cellphone evidence that suggests that Mr. Oland’s cellphone was near where his son was seen and not in the office, the credibility around Oland’s statement and reasons for all of his comings and goings that day,” she said.

READ MORE: Judge reserves decision until mid-July in Dennis Oland murder trial

However, all this will have to be balanced with the investigative practices of the Saint John Police Force, particularly the processing of the crime scene, which may have affected the quality of the evidence gathered or even, as the defence has suggested, destroyed evidence that would have led police to the real killer.

The defence accused police of zeroing in on Oland at the expense of other investigative avenues. Gold suggested that police fell victim to “confirmation bias” deciding almost immediately that Dennis Oland was the one who killed his father.

Officers searching the scene failed to examine the foyer of the office, with eventual lead investigator Stephen Davidson testifying that he did not consider it part of the crime scene. A bathroom just outside the office was also used repeatedly by officers before it had been examined for evidence.

Davidson, who attended the Oland scene on his first day in the major crimes unit, also touched the lock on the backdoor without protective gloves. The defence has maintained that this was a possible escape route for the killer and that Davidson may have destroyed evidence when opening the door.

When asked under cross examination why he opened the door, Davidson simply said he “wanted to see where it went” and admitted that he would do things differently if processing the scene today.

READ MORE: Dennis Oland joins lawyers, judge for visit to scene of father’s murder

The emphasis that Morrison places on these errors will likely hint at what direction the verdict will go.

“I think it will be something that will be noted and discussed. It has been part of the trial so I think it would be remiss if it isn’t noted and weighed and factored into the judge’s decision,” Campbell said.

“I think even though errors were made there was also really good work that was done and some credible evidence that did emerge from the investigation, that the judge is still able to rely on. So I think it will really depend on where the judge falls on his interpretation of the errors and the kinds of implications that stem from them.”

Court is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on Friday.