MANDEL: Accused cop killer won't testify in own defence
The man accused of gunning down OPP Const. Greg Pierzchala in cold blood will not take the stand in his own defence.
Randall McKenzie will remain silent, just as he was when prosecutors allege he pumped six bullets from a trafficked Glock 19 into the unsuspecting officer responding to a routine call.
Following three weeks and countless witnesses, the Crown closed its first-degree murder case against McKenzie, 27, and his then-girlfriend Brandi Stewart-Sperry, 32, on Tuesday. Ontario Superior Court Justice Andrew Goodman then turned first to McKenzie's lawyer, Douglas Holt, to ask if he would be calling any evidence.
The defence lawyer advised that he would not.
The jury was then excused until Wednesday afternoon when the judge is expected to pose the same question to the lawyer for Stewart-Sperry. McKenzie and Stewart-Sperry have both pleaded not guilty.
Pierzchala, 28, had just passed his probation period on the morning of Dec. 27, 2022 when he responded to a report of a vehicle that had gone into a ditch on Indian Line outside of Hagersville, near Brantford. But as the rookie approached the couple standing on the shoulder, he was suddenly shot six times — with no time to even unlock his holster.
The officer's bodycam captured his own murder — the puff of smoke from the gun fired from inside the kangaroo pocket of the man's hoodie frozen for the jury to see.
The pair took off at high speed in the Chevy Silverado belonging to a woman who had stopped to see if they needed help, prosecutors said. The Silverado was seen speeding through Hagersville before being located in the yard of relatives of McKenzie on Mississauga Rd.
McKenzie and Stewart-Sperry were arrested about four hours later following an aerial manhunt that tracked them trying to flee through a wooded area behind the home.
The Crown contends McKenzie was the killer and his co-accused helped him. Jurors have heard in an agreed statement of fact that Stewart-Sperry was the woman seen in the video of Pierzchala's shooting.
The main issue at the trial is identity with McKenzie denying he's the shooter captured on the video. The Crown has meticulously built their case tying the accused killer to the gun and the Silverado stolen from the murder scene.
Forensic scientist Benjamin Lee with the Centre of Forensic Sciences testified that no gunshot residue was found on McKenzie himself but 14 GSR particles were found on the outside of the black Adidas hoodie seized from him and 13 from inside its 'kangaroo pocket.'
Gunshot residue was also found on the interior and on two blankets in the stolen Silverado located on the property of McKenzie's relatives, he said.
Forensic scientist Renata Dziak told the jury that DNA found on the Glock 19, which was discovered in the woods and conceded to be the murder weapon, was 620 billion times more likely to belong to McKenzie than another person.
A swab of the Glock's magazine, where the gun would have been loaded, showed McKenzie was the prime DNA profile, with the odds being more than a trillion times more likely that it came from him. There were no traces of DNA on the gun from Stewart-Sperry, Dziak said.
The jury has also been shown photos of McKenzie taken from a selfie video recorded on his cellphone 13 days before the shooting — where he is driving while wielding a gun. They were then compared by a digital video expert to screen grabs of the killer captured on Pierzchala's bodycam video — with prosecutors suggesting they are one and the same.
And then there were the texts found on his phone where McKenzie said, 'I can't have love when all I can do is talk about shooting out with cops.'
But little has been heard about Stewart-Sperry's alleged role. Court did hear Tuesday in an agreed statement that she was found with .1 mg of meth and told first responders she was an addict, had taken fentanyl about an hour earlier and usually took 3.5 gm of crystal meth and fentanyl every day.
Will she testify? Or remain silent like her former beau?
We'll learn more when the jury returns Wednesday afternoon.
mmandel@postmedia.com
MANDEL: DNA links gun to accused cop killer, court hears
MANDEL: 'I can't have love when all I can do is talk about shooting out with cops,' accused cop killer texted
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