'That raised a lot of alarms': Convicted killer's DNA found at crime scene, murder trial hears
Christopher Dunlop killed Laura Furlan in 2009. He's now on trial, accused of murdering Judy Maerz
Drops of blood found near the body of a murdered woman came back matching the DNA of a convicted killer, a Calgary judge heard Thursday as Christopher Dunlop's trial entered its second day.
Dunlop faces charges of first-degree murder and indignity to a human body in connection with the death of Judy Maerz.
Maerz's body was found in Deerfoot Athletic Park on Feb. 16, 2023. She'd been stabbed 79 times and her body was set on fire after her death.
One year earlier, Dunlop had finished serving a 13-year manslaughter sentence for the death of Laura Furlan.
Both women were working in Calgary's sex trade at the time of their deaths.
On Thursday, Court of King's Bench Justice Colin Feasby heard how Dunlop came back onto police radar as investigators' prime suspect in the Maerz killing.
Const. James Weeks with the Calgary Police Service's forensic crime scene unit testified that the day after Maerz was killed, he submitted a blood sample collected from the crime scene into an in-house rapid DNA testing machine.
The machine is able to identify whether a sample came from a male or a female within two hours.
'That raised a lot of alarms'
Weeks testified that investigators expected the blood was from the victim and were surprised when the machine returned a profile of a male subject.
"That raised a lot of alarms for the homicide unit," said Weeks.
Learning more about whose blood they'd discovered became the "immediate focus of attention" for police.
Weeks said he then hand-delivered a swab to the RCMP's lab in Edmonton and had to wait seven days for the results.
"I received notification that the report identified not only had the subject been male but that particular male was in the Canadian national database," said Weeks.
"That person happened to be Christopher Dunlop."
'Clear animus toward sex workers'
Dunlop's DNA had previously been taken by court order as part of the sentence he faced for his manslaughter conviction.
Two weeks after Maerz's body was discovered, court heard, police seized a purse from Dunlop's garage with the victim's DNA on it.
Prosecutors Hyatt Mograbee and Greg Piper told the court Dunlop has a "clear animus toward sex workers."
After killing Furlan in 2009, Dunlop told undercover officers that he'd set out "looking for someone who wouldn't be missed," someone he could "f--k up."
Referring to that comment, Piper alleged Dunlop, once again, "set out again to find somebody who wouldn't be missed."
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