http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calga...than-o-brien-kathy-and-alvin-liknes-1.2707268
Transcript of Interview regarding Douglas Garland charges.
This is a rough draft of the transcript, it is not an official transcript.
It is not connected with any of the participants.
Any errors are my own.
Kevin Bryan = KB
Anchor: Our next guest says prosecuting a multiple homicide case without human remains presents some challenges.
Kevin Bryan was a forensic detective with the York Regional Police in Ontario for sixteen years until his retirement in 2011, and Kevin Brian joins us now, so thank you for your time here. When we are talking about a case where there are murder charges but no bodies, how difficult is that to do?
KB: It can be very difficult. However, the police are not laying these charges without extensive consolation with the prosecutors in this case, so I'm pretty confident that they have information, evidence that two things. Number one, all three of the missing parties are deceased. And, number two, that the accused is the one responsible for these homicides. Otherwise, there would not--even though we're missing the bodies--no charges would be laid until that evidence exists.
What evidence might that be? I would anticipate or suspect that there was some blood at the scene, at their--if the police are releasing information that there was, in fact, a struggle at the scene. So I would imagine that DNA would have been gleaned from the scene. Maybe from one of the missing persons, maybe from all three of the missing persons.
Blood spatter evidence would have been, a blood spatter expert would have been attended to the residence of the Liknes home and done an analysis there to determine what may have been caused, what may have caused the deaths of these three people. If, in fact, that's where the homicides took place. Although it might just have been a struggle, the persons abducted and then killed somewhere else.
Anchor: Why lay charges now, though? If, we know Douglas Garland was arrested, and charged in a case that had nothing to do with the disappearance of the Likneses and Nathan O'Brien. He was released on Friday, and then he's arrested a few days later. So, is there something with that timing?
KB: There may be. The actual initial arrest could have been on the unrelated charges. The evidence was not there at that time for them to proceed with the charges. Was he released from custody on a bail? I'm sure as soon as he was released that surveillance was put upon this person. He would have been the subject of both physical surveillance -- in other words, a surveillance team following him around as well as electronic surveillance. I have--from working previous cases-- I have no doubt that that took place. Did he go somewhere? Did he do something in that two days, or three days that he was out of custody that actually secured that last piece of evidence that the police needed to move forward to with the charges.
The police aren't gonna tell us that, and we're not gonna know that, unfortunately maybe not until the trial, because I don't suspect the bail hearing will--there'll be a publication ban on that as well as the preliminary hearing if in fact there is one, of course. So, we may not know what the information is for some time.
Anchor: He is accused of these crimes, so police believe that he's committed them. He would know where the bodies are then. How do they get that information from the accused?
KB: The accused is under no obligation to tell them, OK, so how would they get that information? It might be through some search warrants.
Now that he's been arrested, they may be able to now access search warrants that they weren't able to get prior to enough evidence being obtained to show that there is reasonable grounds to think he committed those offences. So, with search warrants of his cellular phone, assuming he has one, most everybody does, maybe a GPS tracker in his vehicle, that type of thing, they may, may be able to follow the paths of his cell phone previous and the activity around the time of the abduction or removal of the bodies and locate them there. Other than that they're gonna have to hope he comes up and confesses as to where they are. And watching him on TV, fthat might be unlikely.
Anchor: Mmhmm, mmhmm. Is there something that could be offered to him to for instance for him to be involved, to actually help them find the body?
KB: There could be. I mean there's, there's always a chance of a , there's always the chance of a plea bargain being arranged at some later date to tell where the bodies are. There, there-- It's nothing we'd want to hear about.it's nothing we want to hear about, it's nothing we want to see happen. But it certainly could be. You know, he might plead guilty to three, three counts of second degree murder instead of first degree murder.
I mean, to lay a, to lay a charge of first degree murder--I mean, that tells us right away and especially it's kind of unusual they would lay two counts of first degree and one count of second degree. That's kind of unusual. Which tells me, I , we could speculate a little bit that one of two things happened.
When he went there, it's assumed that the police theory is that he went there that night to abduct and murder the two, the couple, not expecting to find the grandson, Nathan there, and so there was no premeditation with regards to the murder of Nathan. Secondly, first degree murder is also a--there's a schedule of offences that if a homicide takes place during the commission of these offences, first degree murder is a proper offence. One of them is kidnapping and the other one is forcible confinement. That's another one. There's. there's some others too, but those are two.
So,
maybe there was forcible confinement of the couple, however they took their grandson with them. There was really no forcible confinement there. That's why it was a second degree murder charge. So it's very unusual that the charges are laid two counts of first and one of second. Especially without the bodies.
And the bodies hold so much of the evidence. Their gonna hold the time of death, or some information which may lead to the time of death. And, more important, the cause of death. How did these people die?
Now there may be blood spatter evidence at the scene, at the Liknes home, or in the vehicle or some other location tied to Garland that can tell them the cause of death, the weapon that was used through the blood spatter evidence. That is possible as well.
Anchor: But the bodies would help.
KB: But the bodies hold so much of the evidence. It's very dramatic not to have the bodies and to try and proceed.
Anchor: OK, Kevin. Thank you for your insight. We appreciate it. Kevin Bryan, retired forensic detective with York Regional Police here in Ontario.
