'So shocking': Murder trial begins for man accused of killing 2nd sex worker in 14 years
CBC
It's been a decade since Kathryn Furlan sat alone in the gallery of a Calgary courtroom but she returned Wednesday to bear witness, as the man who killed her daughter goes on trial a second time, once again accused of murdering a vulnerable woman he'd just met.
"I feel I have to be here," said Furlan outside the courtroom.
Christopher Ward Dunlop, 50, is on trial for first-degree murder and indignity to a body, accused of sexually assaulting and killing Judy Maerz, 58, whose body was found in Deerfoot Athletic Park on the morning of Feb. 16, 2023.
Fourteen years earlier, Dunlop killed Laura Furlan and then dumped her body in Fish Creek Park. He finished serving his 13-year sentence for that homicide in 2022.
Both women were vulnerable, impoverished and worked in Calgary's sex trade at the time of their deaths.
On Wednesday, prosecutors Hyatt Mograbee and Greg Piper called Sgt. Dave Mills as their first witness.
Mills was the first on scene after a woman discovered Maerz's body in the park. It was just inside the park near the entrance, out in the open.
She had been stabbed, "cut up," her throat was slit and her body had been severely burned, Mills described.
"It was so shocking," said Mills. "I had to walk up close. I knew it was real but a big part of me didn't want to believe it was real."
"It was just in such a horrific state."
Maerz suffered 79 stab wounds.
In his opening statement to Justice Colin Feasby, Piper told the court that the Crown will present evidence that allows for two pathways to a first-degree murder conviction: that the killing was planned and deliberate and that it was committed in the course of a sexual assault.
Piper called the killing of Maerz "a crime of domination."
Before the trial got underway, prosecutors made a successful application where they will be allowed to compare similarities between the Furlan and Maerz killings.
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