Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon - Shadow of Doubt: The Trial of Dennis Oland

For Jean, Colleen, and Craig,
for your unconditional love and support

T h is is a book of first-hand research. As a reporter for CBC News, I covered this case from the day Richard Olands body was discovered. I attended press conferences, jury selection, numerous court proceedings, and the entire trial, which I live-blogged. Ive conducted interviews and combed through legal documents, financial records, and scientific reports. On occasion in the pages that follow, I draw from the work of other media or secondary sources, and I cite them when I do. Although I made every effort to speak to a member of the Oland family about the case, to my regret they declined to participate in this book. They have said that they will comment publicly only after the appeal.

Speech is reported substantially verbatim: most stumbles, repetitions, self-corrections, and verbal tics have been edited out. The result, I believe, accurately captures individual speech style without sacrificing readability. When quoting from emails and texts, a similar approach is used. Ive quietly corrected obvious typos rather than repeatedly (and pedantically) adding sic. Words enclosed in square brackets are additions Ive made for clarity.

Trials can be exercises in frustration. Rarely do the proceedings follow a clear narrative path. Lawyers pose questions that can seem random and unconnected, only to revisit the issue again days or weeks later. For this book, Ive eschewed a strictly chronological account of the trial in favour of a thematic approach that pulls together testimony from different witnesses at different times to provide coherent accounts of particular evidence and issues.

A t around a quarter to nine on the morning of Thursday, July 7, 2011, Maureen Adamsons husband dropped her off at work. She carried a tray of Tim Hortons coffee she had picked up en route. Her boss, Richard Oland, loved his coffee, and as his personal secretary for twenty-five years, she tried her best to anticipate his every need. It would be another busy day. The prominent New Brunswick businessman had been travelling most of the previous two months, and they had a lot of catching up to do.

Adamson, a sturdy and serious woman in her late middle age, usually arrived first at Olands investment firm office, located in a commercial building at 52 Canterbury, a narrow one-way street in the heart of historic uptown Saint John. She dug for her key and inserted it in the street-level door of the three-storey brick building, but it was already unlocked. Odd, she thought. The last person to leave at night was supposed to lock the door.

Adamson climbed the narrow, windowless stairwell to the second floor, only to find that door, also normally locked, not completely closed. Now she was irritated. Grumbling, Adamson pushed the door open and turned left into the foyer, which led to Olands Far End Corporation, marked by a modest brass plaque. As she opened the french door, a terrifically vile odour struck her. She couldnt imagine what it could be; she had never encountered anything like it before. She stepped inside the multimillionaires surprisingly modest, pack-ratty office full of stacked bankers boxes and electronic equipment, but nothing immediately seemed amiss; nothing, that is, but the air conditioner on full blast. It was normally turned off overnight. Adamson made her way to a long table in the centre of the room and set down the tray of hot coffee. Thats when, as she later recounted, she spotted two legs on the floor under Richard Olands desk. You couldnt miss it, really, she later said in court, her voice momentarily breaking with emotion.

In shock, Adamson didnt realize who was sprawled on the floor in a large pool of blood, and she didnt stay long enough to find out. She raced downstairs and burst into the print shop on the ground floor, calling out for help.

Somethings wrong, Adamson blurted out. I see feet upstairs.

She seemed panicked, Preston Chiasson, who didnt work at the print shop but was a frequent visitor, remembered later. His thoughts automatically turned to Richard Oland. Chiasson had known him for around twenty years and always enjoyed their conversations, which ranged from sailing to politics.

Worried Oland might need some help, Chiasson, who was trained in first aid, rushed upstairs with Adamson. He noted an awful, nauseating smell in the office, and then Adamson pointed. Just five feet away, underneath Olands desk, two legs were splayed on the floor. Chiasson didnt move any closer. He knew right away there was nothing he could do. Oland was, as he put it, slaughtered.

Chiasson would later say he couldnt remember much about that day, but he would never forget that macabre scene. He and Adamson hurried out of the office and back into the foyer. He hadnt known what he was getting into on his way in, but he was careful on his way out to avoid stepping in any blood, he said. Chiasson used his cellphone to call 911. Theres a man down, Chiasson reported, describing the condition of the mans head. Adamson, still reeling, pulled out her own cellphone to warn Robert McFadden, Olands business associate, not to enter the office. Out of habit, she dialled Olands number first by mistake. Within minutes, police sirens wailed down the street the sound still haunts her.

Constable Duane Squires of the Saint John Police Force and Trinda Fanjoy, an Atlantic Police Academy cadet, were on patrol just two hundred metres away, in squad car 123, when the dispatch call came in: male, not conscious, not breathing. They arrived at the scene within four minutes, and constable Don Shannon, who had been working at the police station a couple of blocks away, soon followed.

Chiasson pointed them to the front door and said, Second floor. They bolted up the wooden staircase. The stench of the office also struck Squires but, in contrast to Adamson and Chiasson, it was familiar to him after nearly five years on the job, that of a decaying body. Shannon described it as dried blood.

Squires scanned the chaos. A man was lying face down in a large pool of coagulated blood, and the injuries to his head were severe. His arms were crumpled beneath him, his neck twisted to the left. A knocked-over garbage can was by his feet. A TV remote control, an iPad, and a set of keys were on the floor, along with some scattered and blood-soaked papers. Shannon searched the office for a suspect or anyone else who might have been hurt, trying to stay close to the walls to avoid disturbing the crime scene, as he had been trained to do when he became a police officer, just a couple of years before. Fanjoy entered behind the two officers. The three spent mere minutes in the office and had retraced their steps to the foyer when the paramedics arrived.

Phil Comeau and Christopher Wall had been having coffee on nearby Germain Street when they received the Code 2 call indicating gunshot, penetrating and stab trauma. Unsure exactly what they were dealing with, they didnt know what equipment to lug upstairs. Bring everything, everything you have! Fanjoy shouted down. But Squires told them they didnt need any gear; they were too late.

Comeau, an EMT with almost twenty years experience, readily recognized the odour of death on his way up the stairs, a piercing smell that assaults the nostrils and clogs the back of the throat. It kind of lingers in the air, stays with you for a couple of hours, he observed. His first glimpse of the body and the wide swath of blood, almost a full square metre, supported his suspicion. It appeared he had injuries incompatible with life, he later explained in court. Crime-scene photos would show bits of brain and bone on the mans navy sweater and the hardwood floor. Wall, who was just shy of his one-year anniversary of working part-time as a paramedic, had been to approximately ten other crime scenes, but never one like this. This was an abattoir. He let Comeau take the lead.