Dean Penney killed wife as part of plan fuelled by jealousy, Crown argues

james dean Penney's attorney makes closure arguments in first-degree remove trial

Evidence phase of Dean Penney's murder trial ends with his cross-examination

Penney says he didn’t have anything to do with his wife's disappearance

Penney's eldest daughter testifies against him for the alleged killing of her mother

Watch Dean Penney re-enact with an undercover officer how he says he killed Jennifer Hillier-Penney with a hammer

Penney was there the night his estranged wife died, court hears

Watch parts of one of Penney's police interviews — and what he said about the day Jennifer Hillier Penney was last seen alive

Why did he do it?

Patten says Penney was jealous and angry after his wife left him. He couldn’t stand the thought of her being with anyone else, Patten says.

He closes by reminding the jury of a conversation Penney had with a police officer three days after his wife’s disappearance. Patten brings up a comment Penney made when he told the officer he was worried about being left with everything — all the payments and expenses.

“Dean Penney said those words because he had moved on.”

Patten is now finished. Justice Vikas Khaladkar has told the jury to come back at 1 p.m NT for his final instructions.

After that, deliberations will begin. 

Patten turns now to the "alternate suspect" put forward by the defence.

The defence has raised the spectre of Derick Hillier, Jennifer Hillier-Penney’s first cousin who suffered from mental health issues. They insist the RCMP did not thoroughly investigate Derick, despite him being identified early on by Penney’s family as a person of interest.

Patten says there’s no evidence to suggest Derick Hillier could have committed the crime. On the contrary, Patten says the evidence shows he wasn’t even in town that day.

Derick Hillier died in 2020.

A sample of Hillier-Penney’s DNA was found in the garage nearly three metres off the floor. Officers could only reach it by standing on a ladder.

While it’s understandable her DNA would be found in her own home, how would it be so high off the ground?

Patten says it’s reasonable to conclude this is the remnants of blood splatter from Penney hitting his wife with a hammer.

Penney had told the undercover police officers he cleaned the garage with bleach after killing Hillier-Penney. 

Why did Penney give the RCMP different details in the two confessions?

Patten says Penney was holding back details in the first confession because he was paranoid. He questioned the crime boss’s authenticity to his face, Patten says. He questioned if the police were going to come storming in to arrest him if he started talking.

He first tells a story of how Hillier-Penney fell over the stairs during a heated argument. He says he disposed of the body and gave coordinates to the crime boss. But these coordinates are nowhere near Penney’s cabin, Patten says. He suggests Penney made up the coordinates so they wouldn’t find anything in case they were police officers.

A week later he feels more relaxed, Patten says, because nothing happened after his confession. Nobody came to arrest him. The gang continued working with him.

Now he’s ready to give more details. He describes how he bludgeoned Hillier-Penney with a hammer after she went over the stairs. This time, he marks an X on a map in an area of water closer to his cabin. Not the coordinates he’d given them before.

Patten says there are more similarities than differences in both statements. The two biggest discrepancies in the second confession — how she died and where he dumped the body — are extensions of the first confession, Patten argues, due to Penney being more comfortable the second time around. 

Patten is now addressing Penney’s financial situation.

He says Penney wants the jury to believe he’s broke. But in reality he had assets he never put up for sale, including his family home he inherited after his mother’s death.

Patten says Penney would have you believe he’d rather confess to a murder he didn’t commit than sell his family home. It doesn’t make sense, Patten tells the jury. 

No, says Patten. He was a willing participant, excited by the action and the entire world the RCMP had built around him.

"He wants you to believe he was a deer in headlights throughout this operation."

Patten goes over different scenarios where Penney was not fazed by things like gun trafficking or shaking down a supposed biker.

Patten says Penney never showed any signs of being intimidated, not even when his closest ally in the gang confessed to a cold case murder in a heart-to-heart conversation.

Patten is going over the testimony of Penney’s youngest daughter, Deana. She said she got home around the time of her curfew that evening and spent time in her room alone. She said her father called her to say he was on the way home to get his duck decoys. She testified she saw him grab the decoys from the garage and leave that night.

Patten says Penney had already killed his wife before his daughter got home that evening. He says what Deana saw was real — that he really did get his decoys, but it was part of a ruse to explain why he was in town and not at his cabin.

Penney told undercover RCMP officers he went to the local gas station after that because he knew they had cameras. His eldest daughter, Marina, identified him in the CCTV footage.

Again, Patten says this all goes to the planning aspect of the crime.

Watch parts of one of Dean Penney's police interviews — and what he said about the day Jennifer Hillier Penney was last seen alive

Patten starts digging into the evidence, beginning with the first three interviews Penney gave to police and the inconsistencies in those three accounts.

In the first interview, he didn’t tell police he had spoken to his wife on the phone the night she went missing. Patten says he made this call to ensure Hillier-Penney was on her way home that evening. That Penney was parked across the street, waiting for her to enter the house so he could enter and kill her in the garage.

Penney also didn’t tell the police until his third interview that he was in St. Anthony more than once that day. Patten reminds the jury that Penney’s phone records show he was in town multiple times throughout the day. Why not tell that to the police right away?

Patten says it was part of a paranoid effort to deceive the RCMP. He says Penney only changed his story when confronted with evidence he was in town.

Penney is sitting still as Patten speaks, not showing any reaction. 

Shawn Patten is taking the lead in the closing arguments for the Crown.

"On Nov. 30, 2016, Dean Penney killed his wife," Patten began. "We know that he killed his wife because he confessed to her murder."

He says Penney wants to distract the jury from that confession. He goes through the gory details Penney gave to undercover officers. How he bludgeoned her with a hammer. How he wrapped her head in plastic wrap to stop the blood from spilling onto the floor. How he wrapped her body up and disposed of her in the ocean.

"Dean Penney wants to distract you from these details."

Good morning. Ryan Cooke here on deck again today for what’s expected to be the closing submissions from the Crown.

Prosecutors Shawn Patten and Kate Ashton have just entered the courtroom. There’s a bigger crowd here this morning — with family, friends, RCMP officers and members of the general public in attendance. It’s a big courtroom and it looks like it will be pretty full today.

Everyone is eager to see how the Crown will respond to the closing submissions by the defence yesterday — during which lawyer Jeff Brace questioned if the jury can even definitively say that Jennifer Hillier-Penney is dead. 

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