The daughter of a St. Albert senior whose body was found in rural Alberta in 2017 testified on Wednesday at the trial of the woman accused of killing the 75-year-old man.
Fifty people are set to testify in the trial of 33-year-old Beryl Musila, who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Ronald Worsfold.
Musila pleaded guilty Tuesday to indignity to human remains.
She is representing herself at trial after dismissing her lawyers.
The case is being heard by judge and jury.
Musila was charged after Worsfold’s body was found in a rural area of Parkland County near Stony Plain, Alta., on July 10, 2017, two days after he was last seen.
In their opening statements, Crown prosecutors Patricia Hankinson and John Schmidt told the jury that Worsfold and Musila lived together at an apartment building in St. Albert on Mission Avenue.
The allegations are that Musila drugged Worsfold and then, after some consideration, killed him in the apartment on Friday, July 7, 2017. The Crown further alleges that on July 8, she put his body in a blue Rubbermaid tote, leaving his body at a residence on a rural property outside Edmonton.
The allegations have not been proven in court.
Musila didn’t make any opening remarks on Wednesday.
The victim’s daughter, Stacey Lee Worsfold, was first to take the stand.
She told court she was close with her dad and checked on him often. Since his partner passed away in 2001, he had lived alone at an apartment building in St. Albert.
Stacey said she drove by her father’s apartment just before 11 a.m. on July 8 and saw his vehicle, which he had previously told her had been stolen.
She told court she usually had keys to his place but didn’t have them with her that morning. Stacy said she honked outside her father’s window, called his landline phone and banged on his door.
Stacey testified that Musila came to the window of Ronald’s apartment and said she had an argument with him and he had gone for a walk and wasn’t home.
Stacey said she told Musila to pack her things and leave but she locked the apartment door and said she was cleaning.
Eventually, Stacey said several people arrived to help Musila pack. They loaded suitcases and a very heavy blue storage tote into a taxi.
Stacey said the blue storage bin was about three feet long and so heavy the man carrying it had to rest it on the cement before he could lift it into a van/taxi.
When Stacey was finally able to get into her father’s locked apartment suite, she said it wasn’t the way it normally was. There were items missing, she told court, and it was weirdly clean.
A police constable arrived, and found a red substance on the bottom of the safe, a hole in the carpet where a piece had been cut out near the bed. They found the bed had new sheets on it but no comforter. They lifted up the bed and found a huge blood stain on the mattress, Stacy told court.
She was told to accompany an RCMP constable to the detachment.
More to come.