Double-murder trial jury in Moncton continues to listen back to witness testimony
CBC
A jury in a Moncton double-murder trial continued on Saturday to listen back to witness testimony.
The 12 jurors in Janson Baker's trial were sequestered late Thursday afternoon and within hours asked to re-hear hours of testimony from three witnesses. Recordings of two of those witnesses were played Friday before the jury was sent to a hotel for the night.
The jury returned to the courtroom Saturday morning just after 9:30 a.m. to listen to the third recording of a witness who testified for several hours. While in the courtroom the jury isn't deliberating.
Baker's trial on two counts of first-degree murder began Jan. 3 in Moncton's Court of King's Bench. It's alleged he killed Bernard Saulnier, 78, and his wife Rose-Marie Saulnier, 74, in their Dieppe home on Sept. 7, 2019.
The trial heard from more than 30 witnesses for the prosecution and defence over two months.
The Crown alleges Baker was hired by a drug trafficking group to kill Sylvio Saulnier, the couple's son who lived with them at the time.
Sylvio Saulnier was part of the drug trafficking group, but a rift had developed after a series of police raids as members of the group believed Sylvio stole money and was a police informant.
Baker, the Crown's case alleges, went to the Saulnier home, cut a screen door to enter, herded the couple into a bedroom and shot them once each in the head.
Baker himself testified during the trial. The 29-year-old denied killing anyone and said he was elsewhere the night the couple died.
The testimony being replayed Saturday is from one of the Crown's main witnesses. The witness cannot be named due to a publication ban on his identity.
The witness testified he had conversations with Baker in prison in 2020, months after the alleged murders, in which Baker confessed to the killings. Baker denies the conversations ever happened.
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