Truth and Honour

by Greg Marquis

  Yet the financial issue, if valid, may have had another layer. What the police appeared not to know in late 2011, and what the jury never heard, was that Dennis and Lisa Oland at some point that year had been in the process of buying a building on Germain Street, behind 52 Canterbury. As noted earlier, the rear alley behind what was then Bustin’s Fine Furniture allows fairly easy passage to 115-17 Germain, the building where in 2012 Lisa opened her used-clothing business, Exchange on Germain. A second alley, featured in a defence video from 2014 (which the jury never saw) and described by John Ainsworth at trial, passes along the south side of the building, which for decades housed the Canadian Bible Society. This passageway, fronted by a locked wooden gate, is on the north side of the building that houses the law firm Gorman Nason.

  In addition to the fact that the rear of 115-117 Germain is proximate to the rear of 52 Canterbury, the timing of these transactions raises some interesting questions. The numbered company owned by Dennis and Lisa Oland did not acquire title to the property until late 2011, more than four months after the murder. When did people first become aware that the building, whose title passed to the Canadian Bible Society two days before the murder, was going on the market? How did the couple, who had their backs to the wall financially, expect to purchase, maintain, pay taxes on, and renovate a building worth nearly $300,000? If the Crown was correct in its theory that Dennis really went to see his father to seek financial assistance, was it for his cash-flow problem or was the pressing issue to discuss a plan to set up the couple with a business? Another possibility, related to the testimony of John Travis, was that Dennis had asked his father to invest a substantial amount through CIBC Wood Gundy. The question becomes more intriguing when one remembers that Lisa (Andrik) Oland supposedly was c. $100,000 in debt at the time.

  Premeditation versus crime of passion

  As Justice Walsh explained to the jury, the burden of the Crown was to prove beyond a reasonable doubt not only that Dennis killed his father, but also that he “had a state of mind required for murder; that is, he either meant to kill Richard Oland or meant to cause Richard Oland bodily harm that Dennis Oland knew was likely to kill Richard Oland and was reckless whether Richard Oland died or not.”18 The trial judge pointed out that the degree of overkill in the attack left little doubt as to the intent of the assailant. Yet the preliminary inquiry judge could find no motive in the evidence presented to him. The Crown had laid a charge of second-degree murder in this case because it could not prove premeditation or planning. In terms of trial outcomes, second-degree murder usually outnumbers first-degree degree convictions. All three homicide offenders sentenced in Saint John in 2011, for example, were convicted of (one had confessed to) second-degree murder. And there have been murder prosecutions in New Brunswick where the accused pleads guilty to manslaughter (which, under Canadian law, is a homicide committed without intention to cause death). The specific reason or motive behind the murder, as Walsh also explained, did not have to be proved by the Crown, but in this case the prosecution had stressed financial pressures. The defence argued that its client had no reason to kill his father, and that neither physical nor electronic evidence indicated a motive.

  During the trial, the defense asked why, if there had been intent to murder, would Dennis arrive at the office when Maureen Adamson (and possibly Robert McFadden) was still on-site? Of course,the Crown was not arguing that the crime was planned. There was no sign of forced entry or robbery, and common sense dictates that the victim knew the killer. As criminologists explain, most murders are not committed for the logical (if twisted) reasons depicted in mystery novels or crime dramas. They are “expressive—that is motivated by rage or anger and they typically involve friends, relatives of acquaintances.”19 Psychological studies suggest that murderers often have bad tempers, drug and alcohol problems, and a history of violence, or have been psychologically damaged by childhood trauma. One can find media reports of people who kill, then appear to calmly walk into a store or go home to their families with no apparent sign of emotion. There seems to be, for perfectly understandable reasons, little research on how murderers act following the commission of their crime. Yet, the fact that no weapon was discovered may suggest a degree of premeditation, as the defence once mused when the jury was not in the courtroom.

  The Weapon

  If the killing of Richard Oland was a crime of passion, with the accused “losing it” and striking out at a lifelong object of frustration, where did the weapon come from? Robert McFadden testified that there were no tools in the office except a small screwdriver, and no evidence about construction work in the building or any report of missing tools from nearby sites was entered at trial. The rules of evidence forced the judge in his charge to the jury to declare that the theory of the drywall hammer was pure speculation. Yet the weapon had to be some type of tool carried in to the scene and not one of opportunity, such as a pair of scissors, easily picked up in an office during an altercation. Why would an investment adviser (even one who was handy and accustomed to fixing things) be carrying a drywall hammer or similar tool, especially on a workday? Taking it back a step further, if he had initially gone to his father’s office to ask for financial assistance, why would he be carrying a weapon? Oland, if the jury is correct, brought a weapon to the crime scene and, as the judge declared at sentencing, carried it with him when he left. This inference had major implications for the timeline (discussed on the next page). Of course, if the murder was carried out by an unidentified person, in keeping with the theory of the defence, the killer could have brought a weapon to the office and disposed of it later. Mention of another suspect begs a further question: who else would have had a motive to do harm to Richard Oland other than “almost anyone” (in the words of his daughter)? The only plausible motives could have been financial or sexual revenge, which could include an irate investor, someone to whom the victim owned a substantial amount of money (there were rumours), or a jealous husband. If Oland was cheating on his wife when in his sixties, it is likely he was doing it earlier as well. Yet, there was no evidence, at least revealed in the preliminary inquiry or at trial, of recent disputes involving the victim.

  It would have been necessary to dispose of the weapon after the crime. If, as the jury believed, Dennis were the guilty party, he could have hidden it in a bag or some type of covering. The fact that he admitted to and was filmed carrying a red bag between 5:45 and 6:12 P.M. on July 6 does not mean he took it back to the office on his final trip, or that he had only one bag. One possibility is that the weapon was taken out the back door and disposed of later, but returning to the scene of the crime later that evening (post 10:30 P.M.) would have been extremely risky. Other than Dennis’s own testimony, there was neither any evidence of his whereabouts after the trip to the convenience store later that night nor of him and his wife owning a second vehicle. The safest place for a killer to dispose of a weapon contaminated with blood would have been in water, and the most accessible bodies of water, given Oland’s timeline from 6:36 P.M. on July 6 until he showed up at the police station on the afternoon of July 7, were the Kennebecasis and St. John Rivers. Of course, the hypothetical other killer would have a greater range of options, including the nearby Saint John Harbour.

  The Timeline

  From the 1983 JoAnn Wilson murder in Saskatchewan to the 2013 killing of Reeva Steenkamp in South Africa, defence counsel have often argued that the prosecution’s timeline of events is not feasible. This was not an overt argument in the Oland defence, largely because of its theory that the victim probably had been killed between 7:30 and 8:00 P.M. when Shaw and Ainsworth were at work below. The Crown’s theory was that Dennis, after Maureen Adamson left, had asked his father for assistance and there had been a confrontation. Dennis, upset and confused, had walked in the wrong direction to his car, “distracted and distraught,” and sent a text message to his sister by mistake.20 He had then found his car, driven around the block one more time, made the
illegal turn, and parked in the dirt lot. From here (beyond the range of security cameras) he had walked back to kill his father. Given that there was no evidence of a hammer in the office and it was unlikely that one was picked up on the street, if Dennis did commit the crime, the weapon must have been in his vehicle.

  As with any crime of this nature, the killer would have needed time to carry out the murder and complete any other tasks. If the Crown is correct and the attack took place during the second full visit, the timeline was tight, as a Thandi’s security camera depicted a light-coloured car moving south along Canterbury at 6:21 P.M. If Dennis was the culprit, then he parked his car in the lot on the corner with Princess Street and walked back to the Far End office (which takes about two minutes) and killed his father with more than forty blows from a weapon. Just before 6:37 P.M., when Dennis was either still in the office, on the street, or in his vehicle, he spoke to his wife, Lisa, who had called from their home, for less than one minute. If he was not the killer, he may have returned to retrieve the forgotten logbook. Yet innocent Dennis would have been pressed for time if he reviewed the book with his father, as he testified. Guilty Dennis, after the attack, would have had to clean up, possibly change out of protective covering, place the bloody weapon and any other incriminating articles in a bag, grab his father’s cellphone, compose himself, and then walk down the stairs and out on to Canterbury Street as if nothing had happened. In this type of situation, the attacker’s adrenalin levels would have been high, especially as the almost six- foot-tall victim, judging by the wounds on his hands, at first tried to fend off the attack before being driven to the floor by incessant blows. But once the victim had been incapacitated, it would have been possible to inflict forty blows to his head in less than two minutes. In other words, the actual murder could have been carried out in three or four minutes.

  Another problem with the timeline is that if Dennis Oland was still in the vicinity of Printing Plus when on the phone with his wife at 6:36 P.M., it would have been impossible to be physically at Renforth Wharf by 6:44 P.M. when the Rothesay cell tower communicated with the victim’s iPhone One possible discrepancy between the timeline document and Oland’s 2011 police statement and courtroom testimony is his explanation that he stopped at Renforth Wharf to see whether his kids, whose mother lived nearby, were swimming.

  Given that he had texted both daughters several times throughout the day and was running late, it is odd that he did not try to contact them first. Second, his eleven-year-old son, Henry, was spending the day at New River Beach, west of Saint John, and as of 5:05 P.M., as Dennis knew, was not home. Third, Emily was not kayaking in the afternoon as she had been scheduled to have braces removed, as is indicated in various text messages. On the other hand, children are known to swim after supper, especially on hot summer evenings. And the stop at the wharf may have been simply a coincidence; as the preliminary inquiry judge noted, if Dennis had not told the police about this incident “they may never have known about it.”21

  One piece of evidence that could have been of use to the defence was a seemingly small detail mentioned in cross-examination during the 2014 preliminary inquiry. Although there appeared to be no formal statement to the police on record, a lawyer claimed to have been walking down Princess Street on the evening of July 6, 2011, at roughly 7:20 P.M., on her way to a 7:45 P.M. restaurant reservation. This placed her near the corner of Princess and Canterbury. In the company of her university-student daughter, she claimed to have heard two unseen men having a loud argument in the neighbourhood. The sounds seemed to be coming from within the block of buildings to the right (in other words, the north), which contained the Printing Plus building. Combined with the testimony of Anthony Shaw and, secondarily, John Ainsworth, this would have been potentially compelling evidence for the defence. Yet although the defence was aware of this statement and even raised it during the preliminary inquiry, the woman was not asked to testify at the trial.

  Blood Evidence

  The defence, through its expert witness and cross-examination, attempted to raise reasonable doubt by arguing that any attacker who bludgeoned the victim repeatedly would have been covered in blood. Despite detailed examination and testing of many exhibits, including the VW Golf, the only trace evidence linking the victim and the accused had been four tiny spots on Dennis’s Hugo Boss jacket. Whether the DNA in the three spots that tested as blood was derived from blood or another biological substance was a question for the jury to decide. Other than Patrick Laturnus, the only qualified blood-pattern expert at the trial was Sgt. Wentzell, whose opinion was that sharp-force wounds do not always force blood back in the direction of the assailant. The common-sense reaction to the crime-scene photos and the autopsy report was that this was an assault of extreme violence and the victim’s blood would have splashed on the attacker. The lack of bloody footprints and handprints and a drip trail in the building, not to mention the absence of blood on clothing and footwear seized from the accused, on his cellphone, in and on his vehicle, and in and on the red grocery bag, is one the great puzzles of the case. One possibility is that the assailant donned gloves and a disposable coverall, the type used by painters, which can be purchased for $10. Yet, even these coveralls are not foolproof; the sleeve area, for example, is vulnerable to contact with paint and other substances. Another possibility would be a plastic raincoat, poncho, or other item of foul-weather gear that sailors favour. If guilty Dennis wore some type of protective covering or clothing, where did it come from and what happened to it? The more complicated the imagined scenario, the more the crime passes from one of passion to one of premeditation.

  The Jacket

  Dennis Oland’s brown Hugo Boss jacket was the key piece of evidence in the trial and would be a major issue in any appeal. Without it, as the Crown admitted in 2015, there would be no case. There are a number of questions revolving around this garment. If Dennis was the culprit, did he wear it on his last visit to the office (after appearing to take it off when he had reached his car earlier)? The defendant, as a Rothesay Kent Building Supply security video indicated, had worn a navy blazer early on the morning of July 7, 2011, the day his father’s body was discovered. He was questioned by the SJPF later in the day and it is entirely plausible that he honestly forgot about wearing a brown jacket on July 6. In addition, when the police interview began, Dennis had only known abour Richard’s death (if he was indeed innocent) for several hours, and despite his outward aura of calm, may have been upset, frustrated, or nervous.

  If the jacket was worn during the murder, as the Crown theorized, why was it not covered in visible blood stains, as Laturnus would have expected? People who commit crimes in the heat of the moment generally are not thinking about consequences such as blood spatter. Most of the blows to Richard’s head appear to have been inflicted when he was on the ground, so it is plausible (especially given Wentzell’s opinions) that an attacker may have been spared from major spatter. Yet, given that a person of average height and arm length would have been within two feet of the victim, there had to be some backward and castoff spatter, even if the blows were delivered from a sideways angle.

  The SJPF forensic unit and the RCMP crime lab caught two stains of significance, on the outside right sleeve and the upper left chest. The area marked AO, on the outside back near the bottom, was detected by another lab. These spots were all deemed to be blood, and random probability estimates suggested they contained the DNA profile of the victim. A fourth area, on the inside right sleeve, had a DNA match but no blood. There was no evidence entered at court to determine whether the defendant was right or left handed. The shirt that Dennis allegedly had worn on July 6 was also tested, with no incriminating results. The Crown had to argue that the coat was worn during the murder, as this would explain the DNA in the fabric (which the defence said was not spatter). But there is another possible explanation for the presence of blood, at least on one sleeve. One forensic text recalls an American case where a man
called 911 and told police that someone had stabbed his wife and three children to death. When police arrived he was washing his hands. In this case, “the force of tap water on the bloodstained hands…certainly could have deposited small splatters of diluted blood…on the sleeves and not be apparent to the naked eye.”22

  If Dennis was guilty, could he have detected the miniscule stains on the jacket (possibly made fainter by dry cleaning)? Const. MacDonald had to overexpose photographs of the stains and magnify them by 500 percent before he discovered them. As the preliminary-inquiry judge stated, a guilty person would be more likely to dispose of bloodstained clothing rather than have it taken to the dry cleaner the morning after he had been accused of murder by the police. This was essentially the argument adopted by the defence. On the other hand, if a man “lost” his $1,000 Hugo Boss sports coat on the same day his father was murdered, his spouse would be bound to be suspicious. The defence also suggested that only the most careless of offenders would leave a dry-cleaning tag on the jacket and the receipt from VIP Dry Cleaners on his dresser after being warned that the police would be applying for search warrants. There is no corroborated evidence as to who actually dropped off the dry cleaning and laundry on the morning of July 8. Dennis said it was his wife, but Lisa in the end did not testify and the jury heard no other testimony on the issue.