The brother of a person accused of fatally capturing a provincial police officer greater than two years in the past testified Monday that he discovered the 2 accused killers inside a trailer on his property on the afternoon of the alleged homicide.
Richard McKenzie informed the jury trial in Cayuga, Ont., that his trailer was locked when he arrived dwelling that day and after getting inside, he discovered his youthful brother, Randall McKenzie, there with Brandi Stewart-Sperry.
Randall McKenzie and Stewart-Sperry had been every charged with first-degree homicide within the demise of Ontario Provincial Police Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala, and each have pleaded not responsible.
The 28-year-old officer was shot on Dec. 27, 2022, whereas responding to a car in a ditch west of Hagersville, Ont., close to Brantford.
The elder McKenzie informed the courtroom Monday that he discovered his brother pacing backwards and forwards contained in the trailer, whereas Stewart-Sperry saved apologizing.
His brother then requested to make use of his instruments to vary a tire, he testified.
“I informed him I don’t need nothing to do with what you’re doing, however you should use my instruments,” he mentioned.
The elder McKenzie testified that he acquired a textual content message from his neighbour that afternoon saying there have been police within the space, and he informed his brother to “get the (expletive) out of right here.”
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“After which he took off and I informed him that I liked him and that was it,” he informed the courtroom.
The accused man’s brother mentioned he realized an incident had occurred close by the next day on social media.
His spouse, Katelyn Garlow, additionally took the stand on Monday and testified that she had additionally gone to the trailer that afternoon and located Randall McKenzie and a girl inside.
“Randall was strolling backwards and forwards, frantic, pale, like one thing occurred,” she mentioned, including that she observed the lady was crying.
Garlow testified that she went to a close-by retailer that day and heard about “an accident involving a capturing.” She then headed dwelling, she mentioned, and went into the trailer once more the place she discovered the lady inside by herself.
“I informed her she was not allowed to be in there and that she wanted to get out,” Garlow informed the courtroom, noting that she’d solely met the lady one different time the week earlier than, and she or he was launched to her as Randall McKenzie’s girlfriend.
Garlow testified that the final time she noticed her brother-in-law and the lady was after they left the trailer, going away from the street and towards bushes and fields.
The Crown has mentioned it’s trying to show that Randall McKenzie was the shooter and that Stewart-Sperry deliberately helped him.
An agreed assertion of details learn in courtroom final week mentioned Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist discovered Pierzchala had been shot six occasions.
The courtroom has heard from a number of witnesses thus far, together with some who had stopped together with the street after recognizing the automobile within the ditch and legislation enforcement officers concerned within the investigation.
Witness testimony is predicted to proceed later this week.
© 2025 The Canadian Press
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