'No real evidence' to convict Grant, lawyer says in final arguments of Candace Derksen trial
Mark Grant faces second-degree murder charge for 13-year-old's homicide
The lawyer defending a man accused of killing 13-year-old Candace Derksen in 1984 said Thursday crucial DNA evidence used to connect his client to a crime scene is flawed and corrupt.
Final arguments for the retrial of Mark Grant began Thursday, more than 32 years after Candace's body was found frozen in a Winnipeg storage shed.
They continue Friday when the Crown presents a summary of its arguments to the judge-only trial, presided over by Justice Karen Simonson.
Grant is fighting a second-degree murder charge.
Mark Grant's defence lawyer going over arguments about lack of reliability over DNA collected from the shed where Candace Derksen was found
—@NellyonCBC"There is virtually no real evidence of any type that Mark Grant has done anything," said defence lawyer Saul Simmonds in his closing arguments Thursday.
Simmonds set his crosshairs squarely on DNA evidence collected by police in 1985 and analyzed by an Ontario lab in 2007.
The evidence was collected off twine used to bind Candace in the shed where she was discovered. The young girl was found dead of exposure in January after going missing in November.
Simmonds said the lack of consistency when it came to the police techniques for collecting DNA in the mid-1980s was "madness" and if scientific techniques were "properly followed" at the time, DNA could have cleared his client.
"There were numerous people who entered that shed," Simmonds said, referring to workers at the industrial site, police officers and others.
"We know that certain people touched the twine ... there were dozens of people in this [investigative] process."
'Scientifically corrupt'
Simmonds continues his attempt to discredit the DNA evidence by questioning the competency of the lab that linked Grant to DNA found near Candace's body.
"What kind of lab is being run here? This lab is completely untrustworthy, it's unreliable," he told the judge, referring to Thunder Bay's Molecular World.
Simmonds called it "scientifically corrupt," quoting an earlier expert who spoke at the trial.
The lawyer went on to criticize Dr. Amarjit Chahal, the lab director at Molecular World who conducted the DNA tests that pointed to Grant, saying his team ignored inconsistencies in data that would have excluded or eliminated Grant.
"Every scientific principle that is supposed to be followed is rejected by Dr. Chahal," Simmonds told court.
"The fact that he could put an innocent man in jail based on his analysis is completely lost in this process," he said.
A forensic specialist told the jury at the first trial there was a one-in-50-million chance DNA found on the twine could belong to anyone except Grant.
Earlier in the retrial, Simmonds had requested Grant's charges be stayed because the DNA evidence could not be retested.
He also argued there's no evidence Grant and Candace even knew each other.
"Is it possible Mark Grant was in the neighbourhood at the time? Yes … but we're not on trial by innuendo."
Crown attorneys Brent Davidson and Michael Himmelman are expected to lay out their final arguments Friday.
Grant's 2nd murder trial
This is the second time Grant has stood trial for killing Candace. On appeal, Grant was granted a retrial after successfully arguing potential evidence of a third-party suspect was wrongly withheld from his first trial.
During the retrial, Grant's defence lawyer has presented evidence related to a second case, similar to Candace's, in which a teen girl was found tied up inside a train car. The girl was found nine months after Candace and was rescued safely.
Simmonds argued the fact Grant was in jail for a break-in during the second incident points to another suspect in both cases.
The Crown raised questions about the credibility of the train car incident, pointing to the woman's inability to recall any details about the incident. The woman said during the retrial that she suffers from nightmares and has difficulty distinguishing what is fact.
The Crown also called on a former police investigator who testified he found no connection between the cases.
Because of the complexity and volume of evidence, it will likely be some time before Simonson delivers her decision.
Grant's retrial began Jan. 16, 2017.
with files from The Canadian Press