The jury in the trial of a woman accused of killing a 75-year-old man from St. Albert, Alta., has found her guilty of first-degree murder in the senior’s 2017 death.
The verdict came Thursday afternoon, nine weeks after Beryl Musila’s murder trial began. Before the trial, court proceedings were delayed when she fired several lawyers. Eventually Justice Larry Ackerl told her she would be representing herself in court, although a court-appointed assistant presented closing arguments for Musila on Monday.
Musila was found guilty of murdering her landlord, Ronald Worsfold, whom she had been living with. She had previously pleaded guilty to offering an indignity to a body in connection with the case.
During closing arguments, Crown prosecutor John Schmidt presented his theory of what happened. He said Musila drugged Worsfold with Ativan before repeatedly hitting him with a hammer and stabbing him with a knife when he was lying in bed.
The autopsy determined Worsfold died of a stab wound to the abdomen.
Worsfold’s daughter spoke to reporters outside the Edmonton Law Courts after the verdict was read out and said she was grateful to the jurors because they “came back with the right decision.”
“My dad was an amazing person and he helped so many people through the 30 years of managing that apartment building,” Stacey Worsfold said, indicating she believes him trying to be helpful may have hurt him in the end.
“I’m not going to let events like this change our hearts and make it so that we don’t continue to live with our hearts and go out there and help people. We were just devastated but she got what she deserved in the end.”
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The Crown called dozens of witnesses, presented several books of photographic evidence and highlighted DNA evidence it argued tied Musila to Worsfold’s death, including her DNA on a knife handle.
In his closing arguments, Greg Worobec, Musila’s court-appointed assistant, told the jury to note 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.
He also reminded the 12 jurors that Musila testified in her own defence, stating outright that she did not kill Worsfold.
During the course of the trial, jurors heard Musila offer her version of events. She said she was sleeping on Worsfold’s couch when an intruder broke into the apartment and she chased the person out of the building.
In the process of doing so, she locked herself out, she said. 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 Worsfold’s body to various rural locations in different vehicles.
Schmidt said Musila has changed her story repeatedly over the last six years, first telling police she didn’t know where Worsfold was and then saying her boyfriend killed him.
In a video recorded interview with the RCMP after her arrest, Musila admitted to committing the crime herself.
Schmidt said he did not find Musila’s most recent version of events to be believable.
“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 does not make sense to find a senior violently murdered in the home you just slept in, and instead of calling police or telling his daughter, putting his dead body in a storage bin and driving it around.
Stacey Worsfold said she and her family will need time “to heal and complete the grieving process” after Musila was found guilty, adding that “it shouldn’t have taken six years to get here.”
“My dad would want us all to go on and be in joy and peace and have great lives,” she said. “His death is not going to define him.”
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