Nine weeks after the trial first began into the death of St. Albert senior Ronald Worsfold, the jury has been charged and is now deliberating.
Worsfold, 75, was seen on surveillance video the night of his death, inside a sex shop with 28-year-old Beryl Musila. Musila had been living with Worsfold, her landlord.
After firing multiple lawyers, including one just before her slated jury trial, the judge told Musila she would be representing herself in court. Throughout the process, Musila has slowed court proceedings.
On Monday, the judge was expecting to hear closing arguments in the morning. Instead, Musila asked for more time to prepare, swearing she would be ready to present her case in the afternoon.
In the afternoon, in a sudden turn of events, Musila told the court she actually wanted a court-appointed assistant enlisted to ensure fairness, to present her closing arguments, but he wasn’t ready to do that.
Worsfold’s family and friends, including his children, shook their heads and expressed their frustration with yet another delay.
Justice Larry Ackerl said: “Why are you only raising this now? You had days for this.”
The court-appointed assistant, Greg Worobec, ended up presenting the defence’s closing arguments Wednesday, despite telling Musila he thought it would be best for her to do it herself.
He flagged to the jury that not all evidence collected by the RCMP was tested for DNA, including a used condom in Worsfold’s bedroom, a blood stain, and cigarettes. Worobec also reminded the 12 jurors that Musila testified in her own defence, stating outright that she did not kill Worsfold.
The jury heard Musila say she was sleeping on Worsfold’s couch that night when an intruder broke into the apartment. Musila said she chased the person out of the building, and in the process of doing so, locked herself out.
Eventually a neighbour let her back in and she fell asleep on the couch once again and said she was woken in the morning by Worsfold’s daughter, wanting to speak to her dad. Musila said when she went to get him, she found him dead. She lied to his daughter and admitted to duct-taping the dead senior’s legs together, and putting his body in a Rubbermaid tote.
She then had it carried down to a taxi and drove around with Wordfold’s body to various rural locations in different vehicles.
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The Crown has a different version of events.
Crown prosecutor John Schmidt said: “Ms. Musila drugged Mr. Worsfold with Ativan. Then, while he was laying in his bed, she struck him repeatedly with a hammer in the head and stabbed him three times with a knife, one of which was a stab wound to the neck and another of which was the fatal stab wound to the abdomen.”
The Crown called dozens of witnesses, had a number of books of photographic evidence, and highlighted DNA evidence it argues ties Musila to Wordfold’s murder, including her DNA on a knife handle.
Schmidt said Musila has changed her story repeatedly throughout the last six years, first telling police she didn’t know where Worsfold was, then saying her boyfriend killed him.
At one point, in a video recorded interview with RCMP after her arrest, Musila admits to committing the crime herself.
Schmidt said her testimony in court was once again different.
“She now asks you to believe that she was not present at all when Mr. Worsfold was killed. She asks you to believe that she woke up and found him having been killed by someone else.”
He told the jury it doesn’t make sense to find a senior violently murdered in the house you just slept in and instead of calling police or telling his daughter, you put his dead body in a tote and drive it around.
Schmidt added: “Ms. Musila tries to portray herself as someone who is a victim of her circumstances – as a passive observer who is coincidentally caught up in other people’s bad decisions.
“What the evidence makes clear, however, is that Ms. Musila is not a victim of other people’s bad choices. She is the one making them and then trying to deflect blame onto others.”
The jury was charged late Tuesday evening to begin deliberations.