Deceased/Not Found Canada - Reita Jordan, 34, Halifax, NS, 19 March 2013 *P. Calnen guilty*

[Rayemonde]

Admissibility of the text messages:
http://www.courts.ns.ca/Decisions_Of_Courts/documents/2015nssc319.pdf

 

[Rayemonde]

Admissibility of the police interview tapes:

The accused was questioned for several hours by police. Mr. Calnen essentially maintained his right to silence for the first approximate nine hours of questioning and then admitted (shortly after the victim’s mother was brought into the interview room) to burning the victim’s body. He then provided the police with a re-enactment of how the victim died.

Issues: Should some, all or none of the statements (including the re-enactment) be excised on the basis that their prejudicial impact outweighs their probative value?

http://www.courts.ns.ca/Decisions_Of_Courts/documents/2015nssc318.pdf

 

[Rayemonde]

And more:

A six-day voir dire was held to determine the admissibility of statements made by the accused to persons in authority. The Crown sought to admit the statements and introduce them for the truth of their contents as part of the Crown’s case in the upcoming jury trial.

Following his arrest, the accused was interviewed by various police officers over the course of approximately ten hours. After a six-hour break, the accused was interviewed for another four hours when a decision was made to bring the victim’s mother into the interview room. Following approximately 35 minutes of questioning by the mother (in the presence of a police officer, who also had questions) the accused confessed to knowing the location of the victim’s ashes. Roughly a half hour after this revelation, the victim’s mother left the interview room and the police continued to question the accused. The accused provided further details and agreed to carry out a re enactment of how the victim’s death occurred. The accused then carried out the re-enactment and it was video/audio recorded by the police.

http://www.courts.ns.ca/Decisions_Of_Courts/documents/2015nssc291.pdf

 

[lindamichelle1]

Supreme Court reinstates murder conviction of man who burned girlfriend’s body - Halifax | Globalnews.ca

Paul Trevor Calnen was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder in the death of Reita Louise Jordan, 35, in March 2013.

globalnews.ca

Supreme Court reinstates murder conviction of man who burned girlfriend’s body
Feb 1, 2019​

The Supreme Court of Canada has restored the second-degree murder conviction of a Halifax-area man who admitted to burning his girlfriend’s body but insisted he didn’t kill her.

Paul Trevor Calnen was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder in the death of Reita Louise Jordan, 35, in March 2013.

The man from Hammonds Plains, N.S., pleaded guilty to burning her body and scattering her ashes in a lake, but maintained he did not cause her death, claiming she accidentally fell down the stairs.