A summary of the Crown's case in the 1st-degree murder and arson trial of Marissa Shephard

Eighteen-year-old Baylee Wylie was found slain in Marissa Shephard's smouldering New Brunswick Housing unit in Moncton in the early morning hours of Dec. 17, 2015.

Shephard is now on trial for first-degree murder and arson with disregard for human life. 

The Crown rested its case on Tuesday, April 24, after calling 40 witnesses. Here's a summary of evidence and testimony presented so far in Moncton Court of Queen's Bench.

Annie St. Jacques opened the Crown's case on March 7.

"You will see and hear the disturbing events in the death of a young man," St. Jacques told the jury.

It was established that Baylee Wylie was found brutally murdered at 96 Sumac St. Dr. Ather Naseemuddin, a Saint John pathologist who performed the autopsy, testified the 18-year-old suffered more than 140 "sharp-force injuries," most of them while he was still alive.

A witness placed Shephard at her home two days before Wylie was killed, while another witness, Claude Leblanc, said he picked up a young woman he believes was Shephard at the same location just minutes before the body was discovered.

The identification was questioned when Leblanc told the court he could not pick out the accused using police mugshots on Dec. 18, 2015, the day after the killing.

A DNA expert with the RCMP testified that blood found on the back porch of the Sumac Street house matched a blood sample from a woman with the initials MS. The expert was only given people's initials to work with, which she called standard protocol.

Items seized from Shephard's housing unit were either brought into court or shown in photographs. Among the items considered possible weapons were a triangular piece of broken mirror, a box cutter knife, a curtain rod, screwdrivers, a metal rod, and a dagger with a skull and crossbones on it.

Of the few fingerprints found on the items tested, none could be matched to a particular person.

Neighbour Helen Patria Mandy testified she heard a female voice and male voices aggressively yelling on two separate occasions the evening of Dec. 16. Mandy said she was so scared by what she heard through her triplex wall she called her sister to come over and sit with her.

In the early weeks of the trial, the Crown presented a case showing something awful had happened to Baylee Wylie at the Sumac Street house, and prosecutors are using a version of events told by Devin Morningstar to try to place Shephard at the scene as a participant.

Morningstar has been a major player in the trial, whether he wanted to be or not.

The 20-year-old was called before the judge and jury three times in March. Each time, he was brought into the courtroom, in handcuffs and shackles, flanked by sheriffs. The jury was not told why he is in custody. 

Each time, Justice Zoël Dionne asked Morningstar if he would take an oath, a solemn affirmation or even answer questions, and each time Morningstar refused.

But this wasn't the end of the young man's involvement.

Three days after Wylie was killed in 2015, Morningstar was arrested. In the following days, he knowingly gave two recorded video statements to police, while a third audio statement was recorded without his knowledge by an undercover officer posing as Morningstar's cell mate. The statements were played in court.

Morningstar's accounts dealt with similar events but changed slightly with each retelling. In his two sworn statements, he sometimes seemed to confuse events, and he didn't follow a linear timeline.

This is Morningstar's overall version of events:

Four or five days before Baylee was killed, Morningstar met Shephard for the first time when he went to her house. Morningstar said he had an immediate connection with her, calling it "love at first sight."

But Wylie and Shephard were dating, and Noel also seemed interested in the 22-year-old accused, Morningstar said.

He said it seemed the three young men in the house were competing for Shephard's affections.

Morningstar said it was agreed he would sleep with Shephard in her bedroom that night, while Wylie and Noel had a sexual encounter, which Wylie documented with graphic photos.

The next day, Morningstar said, Wylie wanted him and Noel to leave and showed everyone the photos he had taken, angering Noel. Wylie also threatened to tell police that Noel and Morningstar were selling drugs, and that Noel had hidden a rifle under Shephard's couch.

According to Morningstar's taped statements, the group went into the basement to smoke crack. This is when the attack on Wylie started.

Noel and Shephard beat Wylie, with Noel telling him, "This is what happens to rats."

Morningstar said Noel stopped the beating and told Wylie they could be friends, but Noel took Morningstar aside and said, "The kid can't leave the house."

Morningstar gave the police a brutal account of how Noel, Shephard and he beat Wylie to death over the course of the evening.

When they were satisfied Wylie was dead, Morningstar tried to clean the body with bleach to remove fingerprints. He said he also tried to remove some of Shephard's belongings from the house when fires were set in the unit.

Morningstar said he isn't sure who set the fires, thought he said Shephard doused a box-spring in body spray, and he assumed she wanted it to act as an accelerant.

Police testified that Morningstar was arrested on Dec. 20.

After two months of evading police, Shephard was arrested at a Comfort Inn in Moncton in early March 2016. The arresting officer said she gave a fake name when she was caught.

Jury's warning

Justice Dionne gave the jurors a warning after they heard the taped statements. He said it was a difficult and complicated decision to allow the Morningstar statements to play in court. With the witness not present, the defence can't cross-examine him, Dionne said.

But Dionne said he decided the two statements given knowingly by Morningstar met the standard of Canadian case law. The statement taken by an undercover agent did not, the judge said, but he allowed it to be played to the jury so it could be used not for "the truth of it's content" but "as a tool that you can use in your analysis."

The defence

Defence lawyer Gilles Lemieux is to present his case Monday morning.

The trial was scheduled to last until June 8, but after the Crown cut its case shorter than expected, Dionne told the jury the trial shouldn't last nearly that long.

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