Douglas Garland triple-murder trial hears dentist believes tooth found in ashes
Meghan Grant | CBC News | Posted: February 2, 2017 6:13 PM | Last Updated: February 2, 2017
WARNING: This story contains graphic details that may be disturbing to some readers
A small tooth found after investigators spent 10 months sifting through barrels of ashes — collected from the farm where triple-murder suspect Douglas Garland lived — is "very likely" a baby tooth from a child, a forensic dentist told jurors in Calgary on Thursday.
Garland, 57, is being tried in Court of Queen's Bench in Calgary on three counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of Nathan O'Brien, 5, Alvin Liknes, 66, and Kathy Liknes, 53.
The child and his grandparents were last seen alive at the home in the southwest Calgary neighbourhood of Parkhill on June 29, 2014.
The forensic dentist, Dr. Bill Blair, testified Thursday he was asked by police to examine the dental evidence collected during the investigation.
The evidence included two teeth discovered in the Liknes home, the small tooth, and fragments of teeth found in the ashes from the farm north of Calgary where Garland lived with his elderly parents.
Using an X-ray, Blair determined there were four possible samples of teeth from the packets of incinerated material he'd received, including the one believed to be a baby tooth.
The boy would have been in the age range to have a lower molar like the one found in the ashes, Blair testified.
One of two teeth found on the floor of the Liknes's bloodstained home, where the victims were last seen, "had some consistencies with Alvin Liknes," according to the dentist.
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The bodies of the boy and his grandparents have never been found. It is the Crown's theory that they were killed on the farm and burned.
Jurors have already heard evidence that bone fragments were found also in the ashes.
Kathy McCaw, a forensic video analyst for the Calgary police, was called as the prosecution's second witness on Thursday.
She was tasked with reviewing CCTV footage from several locations along Macleod Trail from June 30, 2014 — the day the family members were discovered missing.
McCaw compared photos of Garland's truck with CCTV images of a green truck near the Liknes's home, citing numerous similarities.
On June 30, CCTV footage from various locations captured three sightings of the truck — at around 3:30 a.m., 5 a.m. and 7:30 a.m.
Images taken around 5 a.m. near the victims' home show something in the bed of the pickup truck, but by 7:30 a.m., the box was empty.
Two weeks after the massive search for Nathan and his grandparents began, Garland was arrested and charged with their murders on July 15, 2014.
Garland is connected to the Liknes family through his sister, Patti Garland, who was in a common-law relationship with Alvin Liknes's son, Allen.
Patti Garland, her parents and Allen Liknes all testified earlier in the trial that Garland harboured a grudge against Alvin Liknes after a business relationship soured years earlier.
Through what prosecutors Vicki Faulkner and Shane Parker have described as "dumb luck," a mapping plane that flew over the Garland property on July 1 and 2, 2014, took photographs that show what the Crown believes to be three bodies in the grass of two adults and a child.
Those photos are expected to be presented to jurors on Monday when the trial resumes.
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- Garland had book on how to dispose of dead bodies
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