1st-degree murder trial in N.L. loses half a week to technical issues after previous delay due to court staffing

The wheels of justness displace slow. Sometimes they don't displace at all.

The panel in Dean Penney's first-degree murder trial was sidelined again on Friday, due to a technical legal issue with evidence the Crown intended to introduce.

It's the same reason the trial, taking place in Supreme Court in Corner Brook, was shut down on Thursday. No other details were given to the jury as to why the Crown could not proceed.

Half the week was lost to a pair of issues. The jury was sent home Wednesday morning when the court's audio system was down, leaving staff unable to record the proceedings.

Court staffing was not an issue this week, however, after last Friday was lost due to a shortage of sheriff's officers.

The trial is scheduled to resume Monday morning. Penney has pleaded not guilty in the death of his estranged wife, Jennifer Hillier-Penney, whose body has never been found.

The Crown has made it through seven witnesses so far, with more than a dozen remaining. The defence will then call its witnesses, including Penney himself.

The court has set aside all of April to deal with the trial. Justice Vikas Khaladkar told the jury on Friday that it's still on schedule to be complete within that timeframe.

The week kicked off with Dean Penney's youngest daughter, Deana, in the witness box. She told the jury how she came home from a friend's house on Nov. 30, 2016, to find her mother's belongings throughout the house. She assumed her mother was asleep, but became worried the next morning when her belongings were untouched and her mother was nowhere to be found.

Of the seven witnesses to testify so far, three have been RCMP officers who worked on the case in the early stages of Hillier-Penney's disappearance.

She was last seen on Nov. 30, 2016, dropping her sister off at the hospital in St. Anthony before returning to Penney's home on Husky Drive. She was supposed to spend the night with her daughter, Deana, while Penney was away duck hunting.

The jury has heard three statements Penney gave to police so far, in which his recall about his whereabouts that day changes three times.

In the third interview, Penney acknowledged he was in St. Anthony twice that day, and possibly a third instance around the exact time Hillier-Penney was last seen.

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

The defence, meanwhile, has raised the spectre of an alternate suspect — a cousin of Jennifer Hillier-Penney, Derick Hillier, who suffered from mental illness and made a strange phone call to her in April of 2016.

The jury heard a recording of Ruby Penney — Dean's mother — who went to police to raise concerns about Derick on the day after Jennifer was reported missing.

An RCMP officer testified about speaking to Hillier's parents, who said he had already left town on the day of Hillier-Penney's disappearance, before she was last seen. The jury has yet to hear from any officer who interviewed Hillier personally.

The court also heard from Morley Hillier, who said he's not related to Hillier-Penney but grew up next door to the family. He told the jury he ran into Dean Penney in the Scotiabank parking lot in St. Anthony in early November of 2016. He said Dean told him Jennifer was going to disappear, and the Hillier family wouldn't get anything he worked for.

The witness endured a heated cross-examination, as defence lawyer Mark Gruchy questioned him over his history of heavy drinking, his troubled relationship with Dean Penney, his loyalty to the Hillier clan and a major inconsistency in his previous statement to the RCMP.

Ryan Cooke is a justice affairs reporter based in St. John's. He can be reached at ryan.cooke@cbc.ca.

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