Loretta Saunders murder trial opens in Halifax with jury selection
4 men, 1 woman chosen so far for 14-member jury
Jury selection in the first-degree murder trial of two people accused of killing Saint Mary's University student Loretta Saunders started Monday with five people chosen on the first day.
The 26-year-old Inuk woman disappeared just before Valentine's Day in 2014. Her body was discovered in the median of the Trans-Canada Highway, west of Salisbury, N.B., a couple of weeks later.
Blake Leggette and Victoria Henneberry were subsequently charged in her death. Police believe Saunders was killed in the Halifax apartment she shared with Leggette and Henneberry.
Four weeks have been set aside for the trial.
Because of the pre-trial publicity, prospective jurors will be questioned under a process known as challenge for cause. They will be asked whether they can set aside what they may have heard about this case before, and decide the matter only on the evidence introduced at this trial.
Monday morning's session went quickly, but slowed down in the afternoon as prospective jurors were brought into court. Justice Josh Arnold read the same questions to each prospective juror to avoid any possible conflict.
By the end of the day, four men and a woman had been chosen for the jury.
Lawyers for Leggette and Henneberry had asked for two separate trials. Leggette's lawyer had also tried to have certain evidence against his client excluded from the trial.
In rulings made just last week, Justice Arnold rejected both defence requests.
'Justice for my daughter'
Loretta Saunders' parents Miriam and Clayton are driving from their home in Labrador to attend the trial.
Miriam Saunders told CBC last week that she's being called as a witness and so could have flown at Crown expense. But family and friends held a fundraiser earlier this month at a popular bar in Happy Valley Goose Bay to fund more family members.
"There's about four of us going altogether," Miriam Saunders said.
"It'll be me and my husband and two of my sons and hopefully, I'm hoping my sister be driving out."
Saunders said they raised $9600.
"You know it's not only people we know, it's people that we don't even know have been supported and let us know that they're praying for us and they're hoping that justice is served."
Miriam Saunders says she knows it will be hard for her and her family to sit through the trial and learn details of how Loretta Saunders died.
"But we know through the prayers and the support that we've been getting from the people that we can do it," she said.
"It's hard, but we got to do it in order to get justice for my daughter."