Richard Oland's missing iPhone was 'most likely' near Rothesay tower: expert

A cellphone network expert maintains Richard Oland's missing iPhone was "most likely" near the Rothesay cell tower that transmitted the last text message the phone received before going silent on the day he was killed.

But Joseph Sadoun agreed Tuesday under cross-examination by Dennis Oland's defence it's possible the iPhone could have been in or near the victim's Saint John office when the final text was delivered on July 6, 2011, at 6:44 p.m.

"There's a slight potential chance," he testified at Oland's second-degree murder retrial in Saint John.

If the Rothesay tower was designed to serve as a backup for the uptown Saint John tower, as suggested by the defence through a new exhibit purportedly obtained from Rogers Communications only Monday, that would "increase the probability," Sadoun conceded.

The Rothesay tower is about 14 kilometres northeast of the victim's Saint John office at 52 Canterbury St. It's located near the Renforth wharf, where Oland told police he had stopped on his way home after leaving his father's investment firm office that night around 6:36 p.m.

The Crown alleges the multimillionaire was dead by then and that Oland, for unknown reasons, took the iPhone with him when he left.

Oland, 50, is the last person known to have seen his father alive. The bludgeoned body of the 69-year-old was found in the office the next morning, face down in a pool of blood. He had suffered 45 sharp- and blunt-force injuries to his head, neck and hands.

The victim's iPhone was the only item that went missing from the crime scene. It has never been recovered.

A jury found Oland guilty of second-degree murder in 2015, but the Court of Appeal overturned his conviction in 2016 and ordered a new trial, citing an error in the trial judge's instructions to the jury. He is being retried by judge alone in Court of Queen's Bench.

The trial is scheduled to continue Wednesday at 9:30 a.m., weather permitting, with the Crown's redirect of Sadoun.

On Tuesday, Sadoun told the court cellphones usually connect with whichever cell tower will provide the best quality signal. As a general rule, that's the closest one, said the Montreal-based radio frequency engineer who helps design and test cellular networks.

The victim's cellphone records showed the last communication received was the 6:44 p.m. text from Diana Sedlacek, the woman with whom he was having an affair. The text was transmitted by the cell tower at 2524 Rothesay Rd., in Rothesay, known as the Fairvale tower.

Based on software prediction models of site coverage, Sadoun said the cellphone would "most likely" have been in the vicinity of that tower.

The chances of the cellphone being in Saint John and communicating with the Rothesay tower, which is about a 20-minute drive away, were "very small," he said, citing the hilly terrain and various obstacles. In addition, there are closer towers that would provide stronger signals, such as the one on top of the Brunswick Square office tower at 1 Germain St.

During Oland's first trial, the defence had argued prediction models are typically based on a cellphone being at a height of 1.5 metres, the equivalent of a person standing at street level.

If the victim's iPhone was with him in his second-floor office, that basic assumption wouldn't apply.

Sadoun recalculated his prediction model based on the victim's iPhone being at a height of six metres, the equivalent of a second storey, instead of the standard 1.5 metres. He produced a new report dated June 26, 2018, the retrial heard.

Crown prosecutor Derek Weaver asked Sadoun if his latest analysis changed his opinion about the likelihood of the iPhone being in Saint John and communicating with the tower in Rothesay. Sadoun said it did not.

'Predictions' vs 'reality'

But defence lawyer Michael Lacy argued predictions "don't necessarily reflect reality." He pressed Sadoun to admit his probability assessment was wrong, given the document the defence obtained from Rogers' legal counsel via email.

It's a so-called neighbour list of cell towers. Networks are designed with overlap between the towers so if one tower is out of service or over capacity it can hand off to a neighbouring tower, which might not necessarily be the closest one, the courtroom heard.

Sadoun said he was unable to obtain a neighbour list of cell towers in the area from Rogers for 2011.

Lacy said the neighbour list the defence obtained showed the Fairvale tower was considered a neighbour of the uptown Saint John tower at that time.

"You have to accept that it could be that someone was in uptown Saint John with the phone receiving a text message that was being serviced by the Fairvale tower, correct?" he asked.

Sadoun said it's not a "yes or no answer." He agreed he wouldn't have thought that was a neighbour tower, but still felt it was "unlikely."

​The neighbour list has not yet been entered into evidence. The Crown requested an opportunity to verify its authenticity and the judge agreed.

Lacy further argued the propagation maps don't always accurately predict which tower will transmit a call or text. He pointed to a series of test calls conducted by police at various location between Saint John and Rothesay.

For example, the software predicted calls made from the Renforth wharf would be serviced by the nearby Fairvale tower, which is less than two kilometres away.

Instead, all 15 of the calls that went through connected with the tower on Mount Champlain, more than 20 kilometres away.

Lacy suggested Sadoun would have said the probability of that tower servicing those calls was low.

"I would have said 'unlikely,'" Sadoun agreed.

"And yet it did," stressed Lacy.

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