Editor’s note: The following story contains graphic descriptions heard in court that may not be suitable for some readers.
Both the Crown and defence made their final arguments to the jury on Thursday in a Barrie courtroom, marking Day 14 of the ongoing murder trial in the 1994 stabbing death of 20-year-old Katherine Janeiro in her apartment.
Janeiro, mother to a two-year-old daughter, was found dead in her Dunlop Street West home on Oct. 10, 1994, near Anne Street.
Robert MacQueen, who's now 61 and is also known as Bruce Ellis, a name which has also been used during the trial, is charged with second-degree murder in her death. None of the allegations against him have been proven in court.
Court has heard the last time Janeiro had contact with anyone was around 4 a.m. on Oct. 10, 1994. Her body was discovered by a friend around 7 p.m. that night. Her daughter had been visiting family members at the time.
With three large printed evidence photographs, each sitting on an easel in front of the jury, Crown attorney Mary Anne Alexander began her closing arguments about why the Crown believes MacQueen is guilty of Janeiro’s murder.
Seated in the gallery were Janeiro’s daughter along with four members of her family.
Also in attendance for the first time were two of the original police detectives who worked on the Janeiro case 30 years ago.
Alexander started by telling the jury “let me be clear. Beyond a reasonable doubt you can find, and you should find, that Bruce Ellis (MacQueen) murdered Kathy Janeiro. And why did he do that? I don’t actually have to prove why he did, but there are many reasons why he did do so.”
Janeiro spreading rumours about AIDS, her confronting MacQueen's wife about her being pregnant with his baby, and the phone which went missing and later found discarded in a nearby creek, were some of the possible motives Alexander touched on.
MacQueen "left his apartment sometime Monday morning, likely when his family slept, and went to her apartment and killed her,” the Crown attorney insisted.
She said the attack on Janeiro began in her tub, and she was “naked and vulnerable.” Janeiro remained bleeding in the tub, which filled with water and generated a bloody ring around that tub, Alexander said.
Janeiro was moved to her bedroom and she “might have been attacked again in the bedroom,” Alexander added.
She said Janeiro’s phone “was stolen by her killer, and made even stranger by the fact that 12 feet away was a wallet with $1,200 in it. This is not a robbery. This was not about drugs. This was not about cash. This was personal.”
Alexander described the DNA evidence where MacQueen's blood is found at the scene on a door jamb and also on the living room wall.
She also described the witness identifying him as the man running across Dunlop Street with the missing phone from Janeiro’s apartment.
“When you add up all these pieces, what you get is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that (MacQueen) killed Kathy Janeiro.”
Alexander described Janeiro as someone who lived a lifestyle that included characters who were involved with drugs, strip clubs and a notorious biker gang.
“You may not like everyone who you hear from in this trial … I would ask you to sit back and think about what they had to say, and don’t just discount it because of who they are or what they do," she said.
Alexander said there are some “missing pieces” to the story, “but I want to be very, very clear with what I have to say to you. You do not need a complete picture. You do not need every question answered to find guilt beyond reasonable doubt. There is more than enough evidence to find (MacQueen) as the killer.”
She used a slide presentation on TV monitors to outline timelines of phone calls made, and appearances of witnesses who visited Janeiro’s apartment in the hours before she was found dead.
Alexander suggested to the jury that the murder took place sometime between 4:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. on Thanksgiving Monday, before she was found later in the day. She said the defence will point to William “Woody” Theakston as the killer in their closing arguments.
Alexander described Theakston, a local biker gang president whom Janeiro sold drugs for, as having an “iron-clad” alibi, as evidence suggests he was staying overnight at a woman’s home on the night of the homicide.
She said the only room in Janeiro’s apartment which was ransacked was the bedroom, and called the murder a “crime of passion.”
Court has heard Janeiro confronted MacQueen’s wife in the weeks prior to the murder, and told her she was pregnant with his baby, along with allegedly starting a rumour that he also possibly had AIDS, which Alexander said was “the final straw in the relationship” between Janeiro and MacQueen.
Alexander called this “a motive to kill.”
Alexander then described the blood evidence left by MacQueen in the apartment, saying “that’s his blood and her blood mixed in” on a door jamb near the bedroom, as she insisted MacQueen brushed against the door frame as he carried Janeiro into the bedroom.
“It’s all one stain and deposited at the same time,” Alexander added.
Alexander said the only reason MacQueen’s blood is on the living room wall above the couch is due to him forcefully yanking out the phone cord as he was removing it from the crime scene.
She discounted the defence’s prior suggestion that the blood on the wall was due to MacQueen sneezing or coughing blood during an earlier time.
“Just because something is theoretically possible doesn’t mean it’s plausible,” Alexander said.
Alexander closed her final arguments by telling the jury: “There is no other reason for his blood to be on that door jamb, and to be on that wall, other than having been left there when he killed Kathy, and when he ripped the telephone out of the wall.”
Defence lawyer Mary Cremer opened her final arguments by saying that the jurors “are now fulfilling one of the most important duties there is in being a Canadian citizen — acting as a juror in a jury trial.”
Cremer explained how everyone in the justice system is grateful for their service as jurors, and “that nobody is more grateful to you than Bruce Ellis,” as she turned and pointed to MacQueen as he faced the jury, nodded and quietly said “thank you.”
Cremer told the jury there are three fundamental legal principles that will serve to guide them through their deliberations, being “the presumption of innocence, the onus of proof and the fact that it is the Crown that must prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.”
She told the jury if any of them fall into different categories when they come to a decision, such as “maybe” MacQueen committed the offence, or if he is “probably guilty” of the offence, “you would still be bound by law to return the verdict of not guilty.”
Cremer spent the majority of her final arguments painting Theakston as the one who carried out the killing of Janeiro, referring to a “power differential” the two had in their relationship, both personally and in business, as she sold drugs for him and was afraid of Theakston.
Cremer described the actions of Theakston and Daigle, who was with him in Janeiro’s apartment, such as wiping down any evidence they may have left behind at the crime scene before fleeing, and not calling 911 to get help, and erasing five phone messages he received from Janeiro in the hours prior to her death.
Cremer insisted all of the Theakston evidence together “raises a reasonable doubt” in which to acquit MacQueen of the charge of second-degree murder.
She also stressed to the jury there were no fingerprints or DNA left on Janeiro’s body by MacQueen.
As for the days leading up to and including the holiday weekend in 1994, “nothing happens on Thanksgiving weekend to cause undue rage” by MacQueen, Cremer insisted.
As for the issue of Janeiro’s pregnancy, Cremer told the jury that MacQueen’s wife may have been told by Janeiro as far back as the Canada Day weekend, more than three months prior.
Cremer asked, “why would he kill her?” — claiming Janeiro's pregnancy was “old news” by the time of the murder.
Cremer also said there was no evidence that MacQueen even knew about the abortion taking place on Sept. 16, 1994, less than a month before she was killed.
With the defence’s final arguments incomplete by the end of Thursday's session, the court will hear the remainder of Cremer’s arguments when court resumes this morning.
The jury is expected to begin deliberating on Monday, meaning the trial may wrap up sooner than the seven weeks originally planned.
