A firearms expert with the RCMP in Ottawa told the court on Wednesday that the bullets recovered from around the apartment complex were likely fired from the apartment of Matthew Vincent Raymond.
Jacques Rioux appeared before the court on Wednesday and was certified as an expert witness, able to give opinion evidence on firearms and bullet trajectory.
Rioux spoke at length about each of the scenes where bullets were fired, and while he said it was likely that they originated from Raymond’s apartment, Rioux could not say for sure whether some of the bullets were fired from the rifle seized from that apartment.
According to Rioux some of the steel bullet cores recovered by forensic officers did not have rifling patterns on them, making it hard to determine if they did, or didn’t, come from the SKS semi-automatic rifle seized from Raymond’s apartment. Although, Rioux said that other fragments and bullet jackets did appear to have come from the weapon.
In his testimony, Rioux said that the trajectory of the bullets recovered from the back parking lot, where all four victims were killed, suggested they were fired from the window of Raymond’s storage room. The shots fired at three different apartments in the A and B buildings of the complex came from Raymond’s living room window, Rioux said.
In many trials the testimony would have been contentious, but the defence declined to ask even a single question in cross-examination. In fact the admissions made by the defence at the beginning of the trial cover much of the evidence given by Rioux.
That Raymond was the one who shot and killed civilians Bobbie Lee Wright and Donald Robichaud, along with Fredericton Police officers Sara Burns and Robb Costello is not in dispute. The agreed statement of facts also covers how many times and where each of the victims was shot, along with a general timeline of events. That Raymond was the sole occupant of the 237 Brookside Dr apartment is also not in dispute.
In their opening statement the defence said they will be pursuing a Not Criminally Responsible defence. In other words, they’ll be looking to prove that it’s more likely than not that Raymond was suffering from a mental disorder at the time of the incident that impaired his ability to understand the nature and quality of his actions and that they were wrong.
The crown disagrees and says that Raymond killed the four victims with intent and understood what he was doing.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Thursday morning.