SYDNEY, N.S. — Defence and crown lawyers in a Nova Scotia murder trial that turns partly on evidence from a dead witness differed Friday on whether her memory of the accused admitting an adrenaline-fuelled strangling is reliable.
Sheryl Ann Flynn's videotaped account of a frightening conversation she had with Thomas Ted Barrett in 2006 was ruled admissible Thursday in the Nova Scotia Supreme Court trial of the 40-year-old Cape Breton man.
Flynn was videotaped by police in 2009 recalling a conversation in which she said Barrett told her that he felt "a rush" of adrenaline as his hands tightened on 19-year-old Brett MacKinnon's throat.
But in his closing argument, defence lawyer Brian Baillie painted a picture of Flynn as a drug addict whose credibility is suspect.
He told Judge Robin Gogan that Flynn had told police she believed Barrett wanted a relationship with her.
He said if that was the case, it makes little sense he would suddenly reveal to her he'd committed a brutal murder.
"What kind of a pickup line would it be to say, 'I murdered Brett MacKinnon'?" said the lawyer.
"It's really odd."
Baillie also brought up the evidence that Flynn had several outstanding shoplifting charges, and that she had raised that issue with police during her statement.
"It's worrisome that Sheryl Flynn expressed a motive to misrepresent what she was told," he said.
The defence lawyer also questioned the testimony of other witnesses who described Barrett saying he'd strangled MacKinnon or made a visible gesture indicating he'd strangled her.
In the case of a former girlfriend's testimony claiming Barrett gave a visual signal he'd snapped her neck, Baillie said it was too vague.
"She said he made a motion which she interpreted as a cracking of the neck," he said.
But the prosecution argued that taken as a whole, the account from Flynn and other witnesses showed that Barrett had repeatedly confided in others about his actions.
"There can be no doubt she (MacKinnon) was strangled and she was strangled by Tom Barrett," said Diane McGrath in her closing submission.
Witnesses may have had prior issues with drugs and criminal records, but that doesn't ruin their credibility or counter the consistency of the accounts, said the prosecutor.
"They are the people that Mr. Barrett chose to confide in and confess to. They were the people that he trusted and he felt comfortable with," she said.
"It took time for them to come forward and we have heard from more than one that they were afraid to come forward. ... They were afraid of a man who told them he had killed someone."
McGrath also reminded the judge that a friend of Barrett's, Chris Andrews, had described a conversation with Barrett about a month after MacKinnon's body was found in 2008 near Glace Bay.
He had said that Barrett told him he beat and strangled MacKinnon, and he watched her pupils dilating.
The prosecutor said in every case the witnesses recalled the details of Barrett's admissions, and in the case of Flynn, "she said they were words she would never forget."
"The consistency is that these are all words that came from Thomas Barrett himself," she said.
Throughout the testimony, Barrett — whose face was visibly bruised — sat quietly listening. After his lawyer's summation, he asked to speak to Baillie and asked him to repeat several arguments.
The MacKinnon murder is one of two second-degree murder trials the 40-year-old Cape Breton man is facing.
He's also charged in the death of Laura Jessome in 2012, whose remains were discovered May 25 in a hockey bag floating on the Mira River.
Gogan reserved decision on the matter, and set a date for a decision on April 4.
The judge said she and the two lawyers would hold a conference call to discuss an alternative date if their schedules changed.
