'Insufficient' evidence against man accused of killing 2nd sex trade worker, defence argues in murder trial
Christopher Dunlop killed Laura Furlan in 2009. He's now on trial, accused of murdering Judy Maerz
The lawyer for a Calgary man accused of murdering a second sex trade worker 16 years after his first killing told the judge, "If you try hard enough to make evidence fit a theory, you can."
Christopher Dunlop, 50, is on trial for the first-degree murder of Judy Maerz on Feb. 16, 2023.
Maerz was a 58-year-old who worked in Calgary's sex trade. She suffered 79 stab and slash wounds before her body was set on fire in the Deerfoot Athletic Park.
In 2009, Christopher Dunlop pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Laura Furlan, a 38-year-old woman who had also been working in Calgary's sex trade. Dunlop killed Furlan in the parking lot of the Deerfoot Athletic Park and dumped her body in Fish Creek Park.
Dunlop finished serving his prison sentence for the Furlan killing in 2022.
The Crown has argued Dunlop has a "clear animus toward sex workers" and in the early morning hours of Feb. 16, 2023, they say he "set out again to find somebody who wouldn't be missed."
Defence lawyer Allan Fay asked Court of King's Bench Justice Colin Feasby to find Dunlop not guilty. Or, in the alternative, he asked the judge to convict his client of the lesser offence of second-degree murder.
"As we withdraw the foundations of the Crown's case … what is left is insufficient to maintain the structure," said Fay.
Fay argued that police worked backwards to prove that Dunlop's vehicles were involved in the killing.
'Make evidence fit their theory'
After Dunlop was identified as a suspect, police analysts were asked to track his orange truck and his wife's orange SUV that he is accused of using in the homicide.
In presenting its case, prosecutors Hyatt Mograbee and Greg Piper exhibited CCTV evidence they say shows Dunlop using the two different vehicles in the homicide, tracking them from Dunlop's wife's workplace to the Forest Lawn Athletic Park and back again.
Prosecutors say the CCTV video also shows Dunlop returning to the scene in a second vehicle for enough time to set a body on fire, which the Crown says is caught on video in a short, bright burst.
"The course of action by investigators was to make evidence fit their theory instead of looking at evidence and forming a theory from it," said Fay.
"None of the video produced by Crown positively shows Christopher Dunlop and Judy Maerz in the company of each other."
Blood found at the crime scene in snow near Maerz's body was found to be a match to Dunlop's DNA.
Fay argued DNA "can be transferred from one surface to another."
If Feasby finds that Dunlop did kill Maerz, Fay has asked that the judge rule there was no evidence of planning and no evidence of sexual assault, making the murder second, not first degree.
Feasby will issue his decision next month.
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