Evidence from McCanns' burned-out motorhome ended up in dumpster

Debris from Lyle and Marie McCann's burned-out motorhome was hauled off to the dump in July 2010 and sat there for days before it was retrieved by RCMP investigators.

That breakdown in the evidence chain was raised in court Thursday at the murder trial of Travis Vader, who faces charges of first-degree murder in the deaths of the elderly St. Albert couple.

Forensic anthropologist Dr. Owen Beattie took the stand Thursday to testify about his painstaking search of the contents of that dumpster.

"Through examination of all that material, we determined there was not the presence of human remains," said Beattie, who retired from the University of Alberta in July 2010.

Beattie said searches of the campsite near Edson where the motorhome was found also failed to turn up human remains.

Under cross-examination, Beattie said he would have expected evidence from the motorhome to have been "contained and protected."

The McCanns were last seen alive on July 3, 2010, when they gassed up their motorhome at a Superstore in St. Albert, where they lived.

Their burned out motorhome was found two days later near Edson, Alta.

Their bodies have never been found.

The SUV the couple towed behind the motorhome was discovered July 16, 2010. Inside, police found canned goods the McCanns had purchased for their trip to B.C. Police say some of those cans were spattered with Marie McCann's blood.  

Vader, 44, was arrested on outstanding warrants not tied to the McCanns' disappearance on July 19, 2010. Six weeks later, he was named as a suspect in the case, but murder charges were not laid until April 2012.

The murder charges were stayed in March 2014, then reinstated by the Crown.

This week, almost six years since the McCanns disappeared, Vader's judge-alone trial began in Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench.