Long read: Defence argues Crown’s theory of Robert Steven Wright’s guilt makes no sense, while the prosecution points to the physical evidence and tells jury the devil is in the details
A full courtroom and a full cohort of jurors today heard the final submissions from counsel in the second-degree murder trial of Robert Steven Wright.
The defence called Wright himself, who admitted that he had found Sweeney injured, and did not kill her. Believing she was already dead, Wright testified he fled the scene. The defence also called an eye witness, Ray Hutchinson, who described seeing another man going into the store before Sweeney was found dead. The defence rested on March 23.In all, the original slate of approximately 48 witnesses came down to a little more than 20.
Lacy described the closing arguments as an “opportunity to pull together evidence and give you our argument as to why you should find him not guilty of the murder he is charged with.” During his summation, Lacy stated that while the Crown could connect Wright to the scene of the crime, they could not connect him to the scene itself.
As well, Uren’s name came up in relation to the fingernail clipping. Both Uren and now retired forensic officer Leo Thibeault both remembered clipping Sweeney’s fingernails at the post-mortem. Upon cross examination by Lacy, Uren reconsidered his testimony and stated insetad he had held Sweeney’s hands, rather than clipping her nails.
Another aspect Lacy said didn’t make sense is the lack of known relationship between Sweeney and Wright. Wright could have “sat where he is sitting now, letting us make arguments and pointing out problems,” said Lacy, noting that Wright declined to do so. “He didn't do that, he stood up and took an oath and answered every question that was asked of him.”
He said rather “the fact that he is not trying a narrative that speaks to everything is evidence of its truth.” Lacy also discussed the two footprints found with a spot of blood in them, referred to as R3 and R4, that were in the far end of the parking lot. There was not enough blood to do a DNA comparison, but Lacy stated there could be “no coincidence this blood is found on the same day Renée Sweeney is brutally murdered.” He stated “the Crown wants you to dismiss , say maybe it's from others who were there, but there is no evidence of that.
Lacy said police also lied to Hutchinson and told him Fetterly was in custody at the time of the murder and threatened to charge him for misleading the police when he told them of his doubts. Parsons began a slide show presentation with an empty slide, simply a white screen. It was meant, he said, to demonstrate the physical evidence showing John Fetterly was the perpetrator of Sweeney’s murder.
Despite the defence’s portrait of Wright as a scared teenager, Parsons said actually the jury had seen little evidence as to who Wright was at the time of the murder. “That is incredibly powerful evidence from someone who observed it, testified and was really unshakable in cross ,” said Parsons. “When you think about all the witnesses you have to make an assessment of liability, how credible what they are saying is, and this is very powerful evidence.”
As to the DNA evidence, while Lacy and Wright stated it was from his attempts to render first aid to Sweeney, Parsons suggested that in that testimony there was no mention of contact specifically with Sweeney’s fingernails.
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