HALIFAX — Police have charged a 27-year-old Halifax man with second-degree murder in the death of an off-duty police officer who was reported missing earlier this week when she didn't show up for work.
Halifax police say Christopher Calvin Garnier is also charged with indecently interfering with a dead body. He appeared briefly in provincial court Thursday wearing a blue jacket, sneakers and a grey T-shirt but did not speak during the five-minute proceeding.
His case was put over to Sept. 30 to allow the defence time to review evidence.
Crown attorney Paul Carver said outside court that he will oppose bail for Garnier, who waived the reading of the charges in court.
Police say Garnier was arrested during a traffic stop at 1:20 a.m. Wednesday.
The arrest came about an hour after the body of 36-year-old Catherine Campbell was discovered in a wooded area near an overpass that leads to the Macdonald Bridge connecting Halifax and Dartmouth.
Campbell was reported missing on Monday when she didn't show up for work at the Truro Police Service.
Supt. Jim Perrin of Halifax Regional Police said Thursday that Campbell was last seen at a bar in downtown Halifax early Friday morning and police do not believe her work as a police officer had anything to do with her death.
Perrin said the charge of indecently interfering with a dead body was laid "because of the cavalier way that Miss Campbell's body was disposed of."
Police allege that Campbell met the accused at a bar last Thursday night, but they don't know whether they knew each other before that meeting.
"Our evidence has led us to believe that they met in downtown Halifax," he added.
"Obviously ... how that meeting took place is something that's still under investigation. But we have confirmed that they were together in downtown Halifax. ... We're continuing to explore whether they knew each other before that."
Police are also asking for anyone who might have seen a man in shorts and a T-shirt pushing a green bin around 4:30 a.m. on Friday along Agricola Street and North Street to the underpass where Campbell's body was found to come forward.
When asked if the cart contained Campbell's body, Perrin would only says that it contained evidence.
Perrin said police believe Campbell was killed early on Friday at a residence on McCully Street, which is near Agricola and North streets.
Police are not looking for other suspects but more charges could be laid, Perrin said.
Rob Green, the branch manager for a Halifax-area fire suppression and safety company, said Garnier is a certified firefighter who started working for the company as a salesman on Monday but was fired Wednesday when he failed to show up for work.
Green said he and staff members at K&D Pratt Maritimes were stunned when they learned of the charges against Garnier, whose widely circulated picture and address listed in court documents matched with the man they just hired.
"My first thought was for the poor family of the deceased woman," Green said in an interview. "I can't imagine, as a parent myself, how anybody would feel to have their child taken away in a very heinous way."
Green said he met Garnier for only 20 minutes during an initial orientation on Monday.
"It's a bit surreal," said Green, who described Garnier as a quiet, soft-spoken man who seemed positive about his new job.
"People in the office were quite shocked. And everybody, without fail, their first consideration was, 'Oh my God, this woman's family.' You just feel terrible. It's awful. It's tragic."
Earlier this week, Campbell's parents issued a public appeal for information to find their daughter.
The young woman was also a volunteer member of the fire department in her hometown of Stellarton for a decade, and her mother said she'd held a variety of jobs in the community before deciding to train as a police officer, finding a job in Truro as soon as she graduated.
