A sobbing Damien Taylor recounted to RCMP, hours after his girlfriend CJ Taylor was found dead, how the two were brought to Kamloops to deal drugs.

On Thursday in BC Supreme Court in Kamloops, Crown prosecutors showed an 11-person jury a video recording taken in the Prince George RCMP detachment on the evening of Dec. 5, 2012.

Dog walkers found CJ’s body in the Guerin Creek area in Kamloops seven hours before.

On the video recording, Taylor, who is on trial for second-degree murder, told RCMP Sgt. Todd Wiebe he had last seen Fowler at Royal Inland Hospital in the late evening of Dec. 4 or in the early-morning hours of  Dec. 5.

Taylor was intercepted at the Prince George Greyhound bus depot that evening and agreed to go to the detachment for questioning about an investigation in Kamloops.

“I really don’t know what’s going on,” Taylor told Wiebe.

The RCMP member then told him Fowler was dead.

“No way — what happened?” Taylor blurted out.

Several times in the next 10 minutes on the recording, Taylor choked and broke down in tears. When Wiebe left the interview room to get a calendar, Taylor rocked in his chair and shook his head back and forth.

“She’s the love of my life,” he told Wiebe.

At that point, Taylor was treated as a witness by police. He wasn’t arrested and charged with Fowler’s murder until a year later.

In its opening when the trial began on Monday, the Crown said Fowler was last seen in the early morning hours of Dec. 5 with Taylor at RIH. The two were told she was pregnant. Tests later showed Taylor was the father.

They were seen leaving the hospital arguing.

On Thursday, a forensic pathologist told the jury Fowler died of asphyxiation, likely from her tongue being pushed back and trapped in her airway. She suffered a crushed skull and facial damage. A concrete block was found on top of her body.

The Crown also suggested one of her facial injuries could have come from a mechanic’s tool found in Taylor’s backpack. That tool had Fowler’s DNA signature on it.

Wiebe asked Taylor to recount the four or five days the pair had been in Kamloops.

“Everything was going wrong,” Taylor said as he sobbed.

Taylor said a man he identified as “James” bought the pair bus tickets to come to Kamloops from Terrace, where they were staying with CJ’s stepfather.

James’s girlfriend was friendly with CJ, but Taylor said the couple soon began to pressure them to sell drugs, claiming the girlfriend forced Fowler to do crystal meth.

“She wanted us to hustle and we didn’t want to do it,” Taylor said.

The trial is scheduled to continue on Friday.

Damien Taylor, 24, is charged with murdering 16-year-old CJ Fowler, whose body was found in the Guerin Creek area on Dec. 5, 2012.

The 24-year-old man accused of murdering CJ Fowler is asking a jury to believe he awoke to see his girlfriend dead on the grass and that he fled in panic after seeing a red car approaching.

However, the account Taylor told the jury in his trial this week is the third version of events he has given since the body of 16-year-old Fowler was found by dog walkers in the Guerin Creek area on Dec. 5, 2012.

Taylor is on trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops, charged with second-degree murder in connection to Fowler’s death. On Monday, he took the stand in his own defence.

The first version told to police

Taylor was treated as a witness by Prince George Mounties, who intercepted him at the Greyhound bus depot in the northern city hours after Fowler’s body was discovered. He told police he lost his girlfriend at Royal Inland Hospital. The pair had gone there after Fowler complained of chest pains she believed were the result of using crystal meth, possibly tainted with another drug.

It was at the hospital the couple was told the teenager was pregnant, news an emergency physician said Taylor and Fowler appeared to welcome. It was the second time she became pregnant as she had miscarried only three months before.

Taylor told Prince George RCMP he became separated from Fowler at the hospital early on Dec. 5, 2012, and decided to go to the Greyhound depot in Kamloops, expecting she would arrive later.

The second version told to police

In another interview in Kelowna, where he was arrested 13 month after Fowler’s death, Taylor told RCMP he had killed Fowler by accident. That admission came following hours of questioning by police and after Fowler’s stepfather —  whom Taylor called “poppa” — was brought into the interview room.

In that police interview in January 2014, Taylor said he was trying to “scare her in a funny way” and cut her throat.

“She was bleeding out of her throat,” he said in the police interview.

Taylor also told police he used “the boulders that were there” to end her suffering.

But, that account — which Taylor now claims is false — doesn’t fit with the facts of her death. A pathologist testified Fowler died from asphyxiation, likely from a blow to her face and jaw from the concrete block found on her chest. Her throat was not slashed.

“I was forced to make a false confession,” Taylor said on the witness stand.

Taylor also admitted — after being shown video of the couple outside the hospital — that his first account to police, in which he said he lost Fowler at the hospital, was also a lie. He testified he lied to officers because he was worried they would know he was high on crystal meth and would search his backpack for drugs.

Taylor testified during questioning from his lawyer, Don Campbell, and under cross-examination by Crown that the week before Fowler’s death was consumed by selling and taking drugs, including cocaine, crystal meth and heroin. He said the pair ate and slept little.

During cross-examination, Taylor often responded, “I don’t remember.”

At times, he took five seconds or more before telling prosecutor Alexandra Janse he didn’t understand the question.

When he was first intercepted by police in Prince George, Taylor wasn’t told by police his girlfriend was dead until he was in the interview room — news he responded to by sobbing and blurting out, “No way — what happened?”

That video was played and court and watched by Taylor.

On the witness stand, however, Taylor initially insisted police told him upon first intercepting him that Fowler was murdered. After that inconsistency with the video was pointed out by Janse, Taylor said police told him at the bus station that Fowler was dead.

The version told to the jury

In the most recent version of events — the events the jury is now asked to believe — Taylor recounted being outside RIH with Fowler, watching for anyone looking for them due to earlier threats. Janse noted in cross-examination that apparent wariness came despite the fact the pair was offered a room in the hospital overnight.

The two walked up the Columbia Street hill toward the Greyhound depot in the early-morning hours of Dec. 5, 2012.  Before they departed, Taylor said, he smoked more crystal meth and heroin.

His next memory is of waking up and seeing Fowler on the ground, taking her pulse and finding her dead. He said he ran after seeing a red car. He said he changed clothes in order to run faster, eventually arriving at the Greyhound station, where he took the bus north to Prince George hours later.

“That’s the only lie that’s left, isn’t it Mr. Taylor?” Janse asked upon completing her cross-examination.

The trial continues on Thursday.

Damien Taylor, 24, is charged with second-degree murder in connection to the Dec. 5, 2012, death of his 16-year-old girlfriend, CJ Fowler.

The prosecution played video in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops yesterday of Damien Taylor acting calmly in the hours before and after it claims he murdered CJ Fowler.

Five minutes of video taken from the Greyhound depot in Kamloops showed Taylor sitting with his back to the door, doing little but looking in his backpack.

That activity — what Crown prosecutor Iain Currie said appears to be Taylor acting in “absolutely normal fashion” — contrasts Taylor’s account of hallucinating and running from what he believed were his pursuers after waking up to find his 16-year-old girlfriend dead on the ground on Dec. 5, 2012.

Taylor, 24, is on trial, charged with second-degree murder in connection to the death.

Currie noted Taylor sat with his back to the entrance of the depot, showed no obvious twitches and not appearing hyperactive.

“Mr. Taylor is doing none of those things,” Currie said of classic physical symptoms of crystal-meth intoxication. “I’m going to suggest this is markedly inconsistent with someone experiencing psychosis from crystal meth.”

But, a psychiatrist who examined Taylor over eight hours and who was called to testify for the defence, said that, despite his unperturbed demeanour, Taylor may have been psychotic from days of crystal-meth use and lack of sleep.

“He appears calm in that five minutes [of Greyhound bus depot video],” agreed Dr. Sunette Lessing.

“[But] even people who are psychotic can appear calm.”

Lessing added neither the Greyhound video, nor video taken at Royal Inland Hospital three hours earlier— when the pair was last seen together — show Taylor’s psychosis or lack thereof.

“This video would not prove or disprove that,” Lessing said.

Lessing also testified that Taylor told her he was hearing voices during their first interview, what she said was an attempt to fake symptoms of mental illness. But his accounts of hearing voices during crystal meth use is believable, Lessing added.

Taylor testified earlier in the trial that the days before Fowler died were taken up selling and consuming crystal meth, cocaine and marijuana.

Fowler went to RIH, where she was accompanied by Taylor, complaining of symptoms from drug use. Crystal meth was found in her body.

While Taylor frequently asked for questions to be repeated during cross examination and gave conflicting accounts of some of his actions, Lessing said he scores well on most measures of intelligence.

But, she added, his short-term memory is on par with a senior with dementia and he has little abstract intelligence. Asked to say what an orange and an apple have in common, Taylor told her they both have peels — correct, but showing a purely literal understanding. Most people, Lessing said, would say they are fruit.

The trial is scheduled to continue today.

Editor’s note: The original version of this story referred to Dr. Sunette Lessing as a psychologist. Lessing is, in fact, a psychiatrist.

The B.C. Court of Appeal will hear a challenge on Friday to the conviction of Wayne Fedan, who a year ago last month was found guilty of dangerous driving causing death in a North Kamloops accident that killed two people.

The appeal will be heard in Kamloops.

City lawyers Anthony Varesi and Micah Rankin, a Thompson Rivers University law professor, are challenging Fedan’s conviction based on a police seizure of the black box from Fedan’s pickup truck.

The B.C. Court of Appeal will become the highest court in Canada to determine whether police are required to obtain a search warrant before seizing vehicle black boxes following        accidents.

Fedan was found guilty in connection to the March 20, 2010, fatal accident that killed 20-year-old Brittany Plotnikoff and 38-year-old Kenneth Craigdaillie. The pickup crashed in a turn beside McArthur Island Park.

All three were at a party together and Fedan was driving them home.

Following the crash, RCMP seized the black box from Fedan’s truck without a warrant, what his lawyers say is a breach of Fedan’s rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Last year, Justice Deborah Kloegman sentenced Fedan to a three-year prison term and banned him from driving for three years after his release from jail.

Kloegman found Fedan’s foot was on the accelerator as he rounded the turn at more than twice the posted speed limit — data gleaned by a police accident reconstructionist from the black box.

The 53-year-old construction worker was also charged with impaired driving death, but Kloegman ruled his blood-alcohol readings couldn’t be entered as evidence due to improper                        police conduct.

Despite that ruling, the sentencing judge did find he consumed alcohol, an aggravating factor.

A Kamloops mother has been charged with second-degree murder in connection to the 2011 death of her newborn son.

During a brief hearing in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday, Courtney Fawn Saul was ordered to undergo an assessment to determine whether she was “disturbed” at the time of her son’s death.

The Crown alleges Saul, now 23, killed her newborn baby, George Carlos Saul, shortly after his birth on Dec. 15, 2011.

“The allegation involves the death of an infant that was a few hours old at the time it was killed,” Crown prosecutor Will Burrows said in court.

“As a result, there’s a necessity in the Crown’s submission for an assessment.”

Kamloops provincial court Judge Chris Cleaveley ordered the assessment under a specific section of the Criminal Code that deals with “whether the balance of the mind of the accused was disturbed at the time of commission of the alleged offence, where the accused is a female person charged with an offence arising out of the death of her newly-born child.”

Saul, who is not in custody, is due back in court on Nov. 2.

A prosecutor has suggested to a psychiatric expert for the defence that she displayed bias in her assessment of Damien Taylor, who is on trial in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops for second-degree murder.

Dr. Sunette Lessing, a forensic psychiatrist, testified yesterday under cross-examination.

She spent eight hours interviewing and testing Taylor, who is on trial for the Dec. 5, 2012, murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend, CJ Fowler.

Her body was found in the Guerin Creek area of the city on that day.

Taylor testified earlier in the trial that he used large amounts of crystal meth, along with other drugs, in the days before Fowler’s death.

The forensic psychiatrist said Taylor may have been in and out of psychosis, including experiencing paranoia and hallucinations at times.

Taylor also told the jury his last memory of the early morning of Dec. 5, 2012, was walking up Columbia Street and toward the Greyhound depot from Royal Inland Hospital with Fowler in the early morning hours.

He said he next remembers seeing her on the ground and checking her pulse.

She was dead.

The 24-year-old testified, while paranoid and high on crystal meth and heroin, he ran from a red car, changing his clothes en route in order to run faster.

Crown prosecutor Iain Currie accused Lessing of showing what he called confirmation bias — ignoring information contrary to her opinion Taylor may have been psychotic that night.

“You remember the details in a way that’s favourable to the opinion you’re expressing,” Currie told her.

The prosecutor also told the psychiatrist she ignored other evidence that may have pointed to the fact Taylor was not psychotic that night, including video from the hospital and bus depot, details from medical staff at RIH who dealt with the couple and information from RCMP in Prince George who interviewed Taylor hours after his girlfriend was found dead.

Currie also noted Taylor covered blood on his socks with a bandana so it could not be seen, changed clothes before getting to the bus depot and lied to police about his whereabouts.

Currie said all are suggestions of rational behaviour.

“There’s no collateral information, other than what Mr. Taylor told you, that Mr. Taylor was on the psychotic continuum,” Currie said, calling Taylor actions after Fowler’s death “markedly inconsistent with psychosis.”

But, Lessing insisted the drug use and lack of sleep described to her by Taylor suggests he may have been psychotic around the time Fowler was killed.

Lessing also told the jury Taylor has normal intelligence in many respects, but his short-term memory is on par with a senior showing signs of demential, perhaps from extensive crystal-meth use.

The trial is expected to continue today.

A Kamloops girl who was “a bully” in youth jail has been ordered to spend two weeks behind bars at an adult prison.

Madison Calder pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court this week to three counts of failing to comply with a Youth Criminal Justice Act order.

Court heard the 18-year-old was sentenced as a youth earlier this year to spend 12 months under a number of strict conditions, including orders requiring her to abide by a curfew, go to school and abstain from drugs and alcohol.

On July 23, she was sentenced to spend eight days in a youth custody centre.

Crown prosecutor Will Burrows said Calder was “a bully” in the youth jail.

“She was behaving like a top dog,” he said.

Within weeks of Calder’s release from custody, court heard, she began breaching her conditions by taking drugs, skipping school and not showing up to counselling appointments.

Burrows said Calder’s probation officer suggested some time behind bars with adults might change her course.

“She’s sort of at her wit’s end with Ms. Calder,” he said. “She thinks she might benefit from some time at B.C. women’s corrections.”

Calder, who has a two-year-old son, said she is eager to turn her life around.

“I’ve said it before, but my life is going downhill,” she said.

“I’m going to end up dead if I don’t turn my life around.”

Kamloops provincial court Judge Stephen Harrison sentenced Calder to 14 days in adult prison, to be followed by a nine-month probation term.

“You are on a course that carries with it the risk of a fatal mistake,” he said.

Brittany Plotnikoff, seen here in her playing days at Westsyde secondary, was one of two people killed in a March 2010 accident in North Kamloops.

Lawyers for a Kamloops man convicted of dangerous driving causing death argued on Friday that police should not have seized the truck’s black box without a warrant.

The crash at the turn in front of the entrance to McArthur Island on March 20, 2010, killed 20-year-old Brittany Plotnikoff and 38-year-old Kenneth Craigdaillie. All three were at a party together and Fedan was driving them home.

Following the crash, RCMP seized the black box from Fedan’s truck without a warrant, what his lawyers say is a breach of Fedan’s rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In September 2014, Wayne Fedan was found guilty of dangerous driving causing death following a trial.

The Crown relied in part on evidence from the black box in Fedan’s pickup.

Justice Deborah Kloegman considered five seconds of recorded data before the truck hit a tree. An accident reconstructionist determined Fedan’s foot was on the accelerator as he rounded the turn at more than twice the posted speed limit.

However, defence lawyer Micah Rankin, arguing before the B.C. Court of Appeal in Kamloops, told the panel of three justices that Fedan had a “reasonable expectation of privacy” from a search of his pickup’s black box. That search, Rankin and fellow lawyer Anthony Varesi argued, requires a search warrant.

Access to the black box on vehicles typically involves removing the driver’s seat, cutting the carpet and unbolting the unit. Without a search warrant, Rankin called that akin to a trespass.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has reserved decision to a later date.

The B.C. Court of Appeal has become the highest court in Canada to determine whether police are required to obtain a search warrant before seizing vehicle black boxes following accidents.

A month after the conviction, in October 2014, Kloegman sentenced Fedan to a three-year prison term and banned him from driving for three years after he is released from jail.

Fedan, a 53-year-old construction worker, was also charged with impaired driving death, but Kloegman ruled his blood-alcohol readings couldn’t be entered as evidence due to improper police conduct.

Despite that ruling, the sentencing judge did find he consumed alcohol, an aggravating factor.

Damien Taylor, now 24, is charged with murdering his 16-year-old girlfriend, CJ Fowler, in December 2012.

A jury will reconvene on Tuesday to hear closing arguments in the murder trial of Damien Taylor.

Taylor is charged with second-degree murder in the connection to the death of his 16-year-old girlfriend, CJ Fowler.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell closed his case on Thursday, following testimony from a toxicologist who spoke on effects of drugs, including crystal meth, cocaine, heroin and ecstasy.

Taylor testified earlier this week to an 11-person jury that he took all those drugs during a days-long binge that ended with finding Fowler dead in Guerin Creek on Dec. 5, 2012.

The 24-year-old said he remembers little, but panicked and ran from a red car, eventually leaving on a bus to Prince George.

A forensic psychiatrist testified Taylor may have been in a drug-induced psychosis, something Crown lawyers dispute.

The trial will resume on Tuesday to hear closing arguments.

The jury is expected to start its deliberations later on Wednesday.

READ ALL STORIES FROM THIS TRIAL BY CLICKING HERE

Abe Dougan was charged with 12 counts of poaching in connection to his 199 killing of a record-sized sheep. His charges have been tossed out after a judge ruled it took too long to hold his trial after he was charged in 2012.

After three years before the courts, a judge has thrown out big-game poaching charges against a Kamloops hunting guide due to delay.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Stella Frame called the Crown’s case against Abe Dougan an “ill-served” prosecution.

Dougan was charged in September 2012 with 12 counts of poaching, alleging he illegally killed a record-setting Dall sheep in 1999.

The charges were laid after an elaborate 18-month investigation by Yukon wildlife authorities in which three-dimensional mapping software was used to match the background of a photo of Dougan posing with the dead sheep that appeared in the Big Game Records of B.C. record book.

The top photo shows Kamloops hunter Abe Dougan and his record-setting Dall sheep in 1999. He said the animal was killed in northwestern B.C. The mountain depicted in the photo below is in the Yukon — 18 kilometres north of the B.C./Yukon border. Both photos were entered as evidence by the Crown during Dougan’s poaching trial in Kamloops. Click on the photo for a larger version.

Dougan claimed the sheep was killed in a specific area in northern B.C. in which he was allowed to hunt.

The Yukon investigators were able to find a perfect match for the photo’s backdrop 18 kilometres north of the Yukon/B.C. border, in an area where Dougan was not permitted to hunt.

In 2011, investigators flew a helicopter to the Yukon location they found with the mapping software. They took a photograph of the backdrop, which was entered as evidence to be compared to the big-game picture.

The photos bear a number of striking similarities.

Despite the compelling photographic evidence, Frame ruled Dougan’s Charter rights had been breached because his trial was not held within a reasonable time.

“No matter how one looks at it, the then-13-year-old shooting of a sheep that is not endangered is not of such complexity or importance that 37 months from charge to decision can be called reasonable,” she said.

Earlier this year, Dougan was charged with three new offences stemming from an unrelated cougar hunt near Williams Lake more than a year ago.

Dougan, along with Brent Giles and Ryan Hartling, is facing one count each of hunting wildlife within six hours of being airborne, unlawful possession of dead wildlife and failing to accompany a person guided.

He is due back in Williams Lake provincial court on that charge on Oct. 28.

Last summer, Dougan was convicted in a Yukon court on charges alleging he wasted meat from sheep, caribou and moose killed in 2011 and hunted too soon after being airborne. In that instance, Dougan was a guide leading a Wyoming hunter on a hunt for stone sheep.

The American hunter was fined $11,500 and barred from hunting in the Yukon for 10 years.

Dougan was ordered to pay $15,000 in fines and banned from hunting or guiding in the Yukon for 20 years.

A jury will now decide the fate of Damien Taylor. The 24-year-old is charged with second-degree murder in connection to the Dec. 5, 2012, death of his girlfriend, 16-year-old CJ Fowler.

Calling the killing of 16-year-old CJ Fowler a “tragedy of profound proportions,” a defence lawyer told a jury Monday in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops that there is no direct link between a drug-addled Damien Taylor and her death.

But, in its closing submission, the Crown recounted to jurors a catalogue of lies told by Taylor, urging the 11 people to find him guilty of second-degree murder.

Justice Dev Dley told jurors they should expect to begin their deliberations on Wednesday morning or afternoon.

Fowler’s body was found in the early afternoon of Dec. 5, 2012, by dog walkers. Her face was crushed and a concrete block rested on her chest.

Taylor, now 24 and her boyfriend at the time, was charged a year later.

“Crystal meth has laid waste to two families,” defence lawyer Don Campbell said in his closing submission, urging jurors to focus on what he said is a lack of a motive for Taylor to kill his girlfriend, who was pregnant with his child — what he called “a huge, unassailable why?”

Campbell said Taylor and Fowler were interdependent, always choosing to be together — even when that closeness led to bickering. Other than what appeared to be a disagreement at Royal Inland Hospital in the hours before her death, Campbell said there was no history of evidence of conflict.

“Without her, he has nothing. Without her, he is nothing,” Campbell said.

The defence lawyer urged jurors to find reasonable doubt in a case built upon circumstantial evidence and lacking in motive.

Prosecutor Alexandra Janse noted a series of lies told by Taylor, beginning at the Prince George RCMP office on the evening of Dec. 5, when he told police he lost Fowler at the hospital, something video obtained later showed wasn’t true.

Taylor also burst into tears when told CJ was dead.

To the jury, however, Taylor said he awoke in a crystal meth-induced psychosis to find his girlfriend on the ground in Guerin Creek. He said he checked her pulse and found her dead. Fearing a nearby red car, he said he ran away, changing his pants along the way.

In a false confession a year after Fowler’s death, Taylor told police — after CJ’s stepfather was brought into the room — he killed her by accident, slapping at her and slashing her throat. He said he then dropped “boulders” on her to put her out of her misery.

“He realized no one would believe his fourth lie because it was absurd,” Janse said.

Taylor then settled on the story he recounted to the jury.

“Mr. Taylor has told many lies to many people since CJ Fowler died,” Janse she said.

Police found socks with CJ’s blood on them abandoned in Taylor’s hotel room. He also threw away her cellphone while in Prince George.

Options before the jury include finding Taylor guilty of second-degree murder or manslaughter — or acquitting him.

Campbell urged jurors to look at Taylor’s testimony about drug use, testimony of a defence expert who talked about psychosis from crystal-meth use and the environment of drug use and drug-dealing the two immediately became immersed in after arriving in Kamloops from their home in Terrace.

A finding of extreme intoxication can lower culpability for the accused, removing the intent to injure or kill needed to obtain a murder conviction.

Defence witness Chyna Samson testified earlier in the trial that she used crystal meth with the pair, stopping only when she had a seizure. Fowler and Samson were at odds and a social worker had to go to Samson’s home with Fowler so she could remove her clothes left there.

That fighting and worry over drug dealings led to Taylor’s paranoia, the defence suggested, making his flight from the red car understandable.

Janse, however, dismissed the notion, saying texts, video and testimony from staff at the hospital showed Taylor was at ease on the morning Fowler was killed.

“Two teenaged girls arguing over a tank top,” Janse said. “That’s the only thing you have evidence of.”

Janse also said the act of dropping a concrete block to kill Fowler shows a rationality.

“An intoxicated intent is still an intent,” she said.

The fate of a man accused of murder in the death of CJ Fowler is now in the hands of a Kamloops jury.

Eleven jurors were sequestered on Wednesday morning after receiving final instructions from B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley.

Damien Taylor, 24, is charged with second-degree murder in the death of his girlfriend, CJ Fowler.

The 16-year-old was found dead in the Guerin Creek area on Dec. 12, 2012, with a concrete chunk on her chest. A pathologist testified she choked to death when her tongue became trapped in her airway, the result of at least one blow to her head and face.

Taylor was charged a year later.

The two-and-a-half week trial heard from Taylor as well as from staff at Royal Inland Hospital, defence experts in psychiatry and toxicology and RCMP members.

Taylor testified he was in a crystal meth-induced psychosis and remembers little of the events that morning, other than waking up to find Fowler dead.

The Crown noted a series of lies told by Taylor, asking the jury to find him guilty of killing Fowler.

A jury deliberated Wednesday for just five hours before finding the 24-year-old boyfriend of CJ Fowler guilty of murder in her December 2012 death in Kamloops.

The 11 jurors found Damien Taylor guilty of second-degree murder, which carries with it a life sentence. They did not recommend a minimum time that Taylor must serve in jail before he may be paroled, something that will be decided later by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Dev Dley after a sentencing hearing.

The 16-year-old girl was found dead in the Guerin Creek area on Dec. 12, 2012, with a concrete chunk on her chest. A pathologist testified she choked to death when her tongue became trapped in her airway, the result of at least one blow to her head and face.

“I want to scream so loud and cry at the same time,” Matilda Fowler, CJ’s mother told reporters outside the Kamloops courthouse following the verdict.

“I just don’t want any other mothers going through what I went through. I want to find answers for the other missing and murdered women, but I don’t know how to do that. I know a lot of them are missing their daughters and have no answers. I have answers and he’s going to jail.”

Matilda and her son sat through the two-and-a-half week trial, coming to Kamloops from Prince George.

The trial heard Taylor, then 21, and CJ were inseparable. CJ, who learned hours before her death she was pregnant with Taylor’s child, asked her stepfather to treat him as family. He called him “poppa.”

“I also want to say sorry to Damien’s family,” Matilda said.

Several of Taylor’s family members attended the trial but they declined to speak with reporters following the verdict.

Crown lawyers said the trial went smoothly. One of them, veteran prosecutor Iain Currie said it was the quickest verdict he has experienced in a murder trial.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell called it a “fairly linear case in terms of the issues.”

During argument he urged the jury to find Taylor was in a psychosis from days of crystal meth use and lack of sleep. He said there was no motive for the killing and the couple was a loving one.

“To me, when we go to the heart of the case is the human wreckage from the abuse of crystal meth,” he said. “It’s profoundly tragic CJ Fowler lost her life in this.”

Matilda Fowler thanked support from family and victim services “for keeping me going.”

“I want to go to the site where her body was found and put some things there and fix it up, add a cross on there,” she said.

A Chase woman who bilked the provincial government out of more than $11,000 won’t have a criminal record if she can stay out of trouble for 18 months.

Mary Kuch entered into a plea bargain on one count of fraud under $5,000 expecting to be placed on house arrest.

Instead, after hearing the woman’s circumstances, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Terence Schultes granted the 35-year-old mother of two a conditional discharge with 18 months of probation.

Kuch applied for income assistance three times — in November 2009, November 2011 and January 2012 — and failed to report income to the government.

Court heard Kuch received $9,000 from a friend and more than $1,100 from an employer.

Defence lawyer Don Campbell said Kuch’s 13-year-old son suffers from muscular dystrophy and has to travel regularly to Vancouver to receive treatment.

“It’s a very expensive process for a parent and she was unable to keep up with that situation,” he said.

“Ms. Kuch was committing this offence to support her family, not for personal or narcissistic reasons.”

Campbell noted Kuch racked up $26,000 in student loans while taking a legal-assistant program at a local college.

With a fraud conviction, he said, she would not be able to work in the field and has begun work at a hardware store.

Schultes said part of his decision in handing Kuch a conditional discharge was so she could pursue work in the legal field.

He also ordered her to repay $4,999 to the provincial government and complete 40 hours of community service.

Cheryl William

A Kamloops woman who died in following a downtown house fire in 2013 was collateral damage after a man set ablaze a box of clothes following a fight with his girlfriend, a jury has been told.

David Gordon’s trial on charges of manslaughter and two counts of causing damage by fire or explosion began on Thursday in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops.

Gordon was arrested after an April 25, 2013, fire at 927 St. Paul St. claimed the life of Cheryl William.

In his opening statement to the 12-person jury, Crown prosecutor Neil Flanagan said Gordon and his girlfriend, Marie Ricard, had been drinking at the Kami Inn in the evening before the early-morning fire.

Also at the Kami Inn that evening were Gordon’s roommate, William Toporowski, and William.

Flanagan said the four people were intoxicated when they returned to the St. Paul Street home.

“There is some difficulty between Ms. Ricard and Mr. Gordon,” Flanagan said.

“This difficulty results in the police being called. The police attend at the residence at around 1 a.m. and they decide the best way to resolve the situation was to take Ms. Ricard to a different place.”

Less than an hour later, Flanagan said, Gordon told Toporowski there was a fire in his bedroom before leaving the home.

Court heard Toporowski attempted to extinguish the blaze. He then tried unsuccessfully to wake William, who was asleep in the living room.

Toporowski then fled the home, Flanagan said, and alerted neighbours.

Gordon was arrested a short time after emergency crews arrived at the scene.

Flanagan said Gordon admitted to police he had set a box of clothes on fire in his bedroom.

The trial is expected to continue for two weeks.

A Kamloops sex offender who refused to complete his court-ordered counselling has been placed on a lengthy probation term.

Frank Desmet pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Friday to breach of probation.

The 65-year-old was convicted in 2012 of making or publishing child pornography and sentenced to 18 months in jail and two years of probation.

One of Desmet’s probation conditions was to complete a sexual-offender maintenance program, a weekly group counselling session for sex offenders.

Crown prosecutor Monica Fras said Desmet was disruptive in the sessions, at one point giving other sex offenders literature titled, “10 Myths About Sex Offenders.”

“He was advised that this wasn’t appropriate and the literature was removed from the other participants,” Fras said, noting Desmet also showed up to another session with a tablet computer.

“There was some concern that he was filming the group or taping the group,” she said.

Desmet was kicked out of the group sessions and never completed his counselling.

Fras and defence lawyer Eric Rines pitched a plea-bargain deal that would have seen Desmet complete one year of probation with no further counselling.

Kamloops provincial court Judge Roy Dickey did not accept the joint submission, instead placing Desmet on a three-year probation term with orders requiring him to complete counselling, have no contact with children under 16 and stay away from parks, schools and day cares.

Cheryl William died four days after becoming trapped in a downtown Kamloops house that was on fire on April 25, 2013.

A defence lawyer has raised questions about the treatment of a Kamloops man accused of setting a deadly house fire in 2013.

David Gordon is on trial in B.C. Supreme Court on one count of manslaughter and two counts of causing damage by fire or explosion. His trial, before a 12-person jury, began on Thursday.

Cheryl William died following a blaze at 927 St. Paul Street in downtown Kamloops on April 25, 2013.

Taking the stand on Friday, former RCMP Const. Rose Dunsmore said she arrested Gordon for criminal negligence causing death less than an hour after the fire — despite the fact William didn’t die until four days later.

Dunsmore said she was told by her watch commander to arrest Gordon for criminal negligence causing death. She said she did not know at the time whether William was alive and was acting “in good faith.”

“Did you know at the time that no one had died?” defence lawyer Ken Tessovitch asked.

“No, I did not,” Dunsmore replied.

“As an experienced police officer, you understand the importance of arresting someone for the correct offence?” Tessovitch asked.

“That’s correct,” Dunsmore replied.

Dunsmore has since quit her job as an RCMP officer.

The jury has previously been told Gordon set a box of clothes on fire in his bedroom after having an argument with his girlfriend.

William was a visitor at his house. The jury has heard that she could not be awoken as the fire started to spread.

The trial is expected to continue for two weeks.

Lawyers will argue later this month about whether a Kamloops man’s guilty plea to murdering his ex-girlfriend will be allowed to proceed.

Christopher Butler, 41, pleaded guilty in June to one count of second-degree murder in the death of Deanne Wheeler.  Wheeler, 26, was found dead in Butler’s North Shore apartment on Dec. 30.

During a brief hearing in B.C. Supreme Court yesterday, lawyers agreed to return to court on Oct. 30 to discuss the guilty plea.

Butler was self-represented when he entered the plea. He has since retained local lawyers Jay Michi and Micah Rankin.

In April, Butler was found mentally fit to stand trial. At earlier court appearances, he would often blurt out incoherent statements about God and religion and, at one point, appeared to become fixated on the coat of arms in the courtroom.

Butler and Wheeler had been involved in a romantic relationship in the past, but were not together at the time of her death.

Butler remains in custody.

Despite the Crown asking for a $500 fine to be levied against a Clinton man busted with 120 grams of marijuana earlier this year, he will only have to pay $50 thanks to the charitable decision of a Kamloops judge.

Branden Aleck pleaded guilty in Kamloops provincial court on Thursday to possession of cannabis.

Court heard the 27-year-old was arrested following a traffic stop in Clinton on May 30. An RCMP officer pulled over a Honda Civic with burned-out headlights and detected an odour of weed.

Aleck, a passenger in the vehicle, was found to be in possession of a bag containing 120 grams of marijuana.

Federal Crown prosecutor Anthony Varesi asked for a $500 fine — roughly the value of Aleck’s stash.

But, after a brief back-and-forth with the self-represented accused, Kamloops provincial court Judge Roy Dickey slashed the Crown suggestion by 90 per cent.

Aleck told court his only income is a $235 government cheque he receives each month, noting he is trying to pay child support out of that sum.

Dickey gave Aleck until March 2016 to pay his fine.

Canada’s top court has upheld B.C.’s tough system of roadside penalties for impaired drivers, including vehicle impoundments, stiff fines and immediate 90-day licence suspensions.

The Supreme Court of Canada handed down twin judgments on Friday that back key elements of the provincial government’s policy after it was challenged by motorists.

Justices said there was “no doubt” automatic roadside prohibitions are within the province’s jurisdiction and a valid regulatory measure.

They rejected the argument of opponents that the penalties effectively create an offence that requires a right to a fair trial, not an instant decision by police after a failed blood-alcohol reading on a portable device.

The court found the province’s “pressing and substantial” goal of enacting the scheme “was not to oust the criminal law, but rather to prevent death and serious injury on public roads by removing drunk drivers and deterring impaired driving.”

Roadside penalties have largely supplanted criminal investigations and prosecutions for impaired driving in B.C. The amount of time and money expended on drunk driving cases in the courts and by police is down because of the nearly 70 per cent drop in impaired charges.

Police still pursue criminal charges in cases of injury or death due to drunk driving.

Defence lawyers have criticized the immediate roadside prohibitions as a de facto decriminalization of most cases of impaired driving.

Although drivers who are caught and punished at roadside face stiff sanctions, they do not usually risk an impaired driving conviction and criminal record.

Also before the courts was the constitutionality of the compulsory demand to provide a breath sample or face roadside penalties.

A majority of Supreme Court justices said the original 2010 provision did violate the Charter of Rights protection against unlawful search and seizure.

The province amended its law in 2012 to allow drivers who fail a roadside breath test to take a second test – the lowest of the two readings is used – and created a process for them to appeal driving prohibitions.

“Our belief is that the amendments our government made in June 2012 already address the constitutional issues noted in the court’s decision,” B.C. Justice Minister Suzanne Anton said.

It’s not yet clear if drivers penalized in the first two years of the program could be compensated.

Anton welcomed the ruling, adding immediate roadside prohibitions have been “very effective” and have saved an estimated 260 lives over the past five years.

“People are learning from them, they’re not drinking and driving as much,” Anton said.

“As soon as you blow that warn or that fail you will be penalized. And that is what deters people from drinking and driving. That’s what keeps our roads safe.”

Defence lawyers intend to continue to challenge elements of the B.C. law that were not addressed by the top court.

About 18,000 roadside prohibitions are issued each year and about two per cent are successfully challenged through the review process.