The jury in the Dennis Oland murder trial got another look on Friday at a brown sports jacket, a piece of Crown evidence that was examined in Nova Scotia by an RCMP blood stain analyst.
RCMP Sgt. Brian Wentzell is the analyst who was called in to help with the Richard Oland murder investigation.
Along with stains in the Oland office, Wentzell told the jury he examined blood soaked clothing that the victim was wearing, including Oland’s sweater and shirt.
“It was a sufficient quantity of blood to show saturation stains,” he said.
The jury was shown a photo of a shirt Wentzell says was seized from Dennis Oland’s home, and checked in three places for blood but he told the court:
“No blood was confirmed and no human D.N.A was found on the three locations.”
Wentzell also showed the brown jacket to the jury.
He used multiple lab photos, and showed five areas of staining, some he described as “reddish strains,” on the outside of the jacket and on the inside of the sleeves.
Some stains were less than a millimeter in size, up to about two centimeters in size.
The jury was told earlier in the trial by Crown prosecutor PJ Veinot that a brown jacket seized from Dennis Oland’s home contained traces of blood that matched the profile of Richard Oland.
When asked on Friday, Wentzell said that identifying stains is the job of another lab, not his.
He told the court that he examined the brown jacket on two separate occasions in the RCMP lab in Nova Scotia.
The first time in December of 2011, and the second time it was sent back for re-examination in October 2012.
The jacket may have travelled farther than that, the court heard that one photo was taken by an employee of the RCMP lab in Ottawa.
The Crown returned Friday to a question raised on Thursday about why the blood spatter expert was called by Saint John Police after the victim’s body had been removed.
Wentzell says, “Generally, if they know we’re coming or we are called to assist, they attempt to leave the body in place.”
He added that he had been to crime scenes in the past where the body had already been removed.
Sgt. Wentzell returns to the witness stand Monday for cross examination.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Mike Cameron.