Deceased/Not Found Canada - Reita Jordan, 34, Halifax, NS, 19 March 2013 *P. Calnen guilty*

New Posts

TravelingBug said:
The suspect in this case, Paul Calnen, is the father of a girl who is now missing.

She was supposed to testify in a SEPARATE case against HER BF (and some others) and went missing last weekend. They're saying they don't suspect foul play but are concerned about her safety.

I'm a little shocked given she was about to be part of TWO pretty significant cases - the other being her father's.

She's not a preliminary witness in his, but will come into play at some point.

Anyway, thread on his missing daughter - CANADA Bethany Calnen 20 April 5,2014 Halifax, Nova Scotia - Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community
Click to expand...

dang.....this link to Bethany Calnen does not work....nor could I use the search feature to find it...led me right back to this forum....could Mods fix??
 
November 3Rd:

A Hammonds Plains man surprised the court on the first day of his second-degree murder trial Monday, pleading guilty to a second, lesser charge...

Before the court selected a jury – made up of nine women and five men – Calnen pleaded not guilty to the charge of second-degree murder, but pleaded guilty to the charge of indecently interfering with human remains.
Click to expand...

http://www.trurodaily.com/News/Regi...o-indecently-interfering-with-human-remains/1


November 3Rd:

Reita Jordan was planning to leave Paul Calnen and steal some of his valuables when she went missing in March 2013, the Crown said Tuesday in its opening submissions at Calnen’s murder trial...

"He also was trying to create the impression that she simply had packed her bags and left before he arrived home that afternoon. He burned some of her belongings. He put her body in the woods.

“The day after police declared it to be a homicide investigation, he went back to retrieve her body and then burned it.”
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/...an-planned-to-leave-man-accused-of-her-murder
 
November 3rd :

Wade Weeks was the only witness called to the stand to testify Tuesday. He was a friend of Jordan’s and testified the two had a sexual relationship and did drugs together in the days before she went missing.
Click to expand...

http://globalnews.ca/news/2316136/procedural-arguments-make-for-a-slow-start-to-calnen-murder-trial/


On Wednesday, testimony continued from Jordan’s friend, Wade Weeks, giving the jury a look at 379 text messages between his phone and the victim’s, sent in the days leading up to her death.

“He put his hands on me. I don’t think I’m safe here,” Jordan texted to Weeks on Mar. 10, 2013, referring to Calnen.

She said she had a plan to leave Calnen, but it got delayed.
"I can't leave him,” Jordan texted Weeks on Mar. 13. “He's suicidal because he doesn't want me to go. He's a mess."
Click to expand...

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifa...-rob-accused-during-halifax-murder-trial.html
 
4th November:

Weeks said he had agreed to help his friend leave Calnen and steal some of his valuables, including gold jewelry and a pair of four-wheel all-terrain vehicles....

The last text Weeks received from her phone was in the early evening [of the day she died].

“Gone in town,” it read.

Weeks testified that Calnen phoned him just over an hour later.

“It wasn’t a very long conversation,” Weeks recalled. “He just wanted to know if I’d seen Reita or if Reita was with me.”

Weeks told the court Calnen “seemed calm” during the phone call, “nothing strange, not aggravated. He just seemed normal.”
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/...een-alleged-murder-victim-reita-jordan-friend

On cross examination, the defence said Weeks was in love with Jordan and that she was using him, mainly for drugs. They also tried to discredit Weeks’ testimony, and his fashion choices.

“I thought it was interesting that he chose to come to court wearing a sweater in support of the Hells Angels,” Planetta told Global News...

The court also heard from Krista Andrews, Reita Jordan’s best friend. She said Calnen never reported Reita missing and didn’t seem concerned about her whereabouts.
Click to expand...

http://globalnews.ca/news/2318802/text-messages-become-critical-evidence-at-calnen-murder-trial/

reita-jordan.jpg
Reita Jordan
 
5th November:

The jury also saw a three hour videotaped statement that Calnen gave to police shortly after Jordan was reported missing.

“This videotape shows him prior to his arrest, so this is when it’s just a missing person. So he says she left on her own, didn’t know where she was. We’re gonna see evidence later on that contradicts everything he says here,” said Rick Woodburn, one of the Crown Attorney’s on the case.
Click to expand...

http://globalnews.ca/news/2320942/v...-jury-on-day-4-of-second-degree-murder-trial/


After his arrest, Calnen told police in a videotaped interview that he went home on the day Reita died and found her with her bags packed. They argued.

The jury at Calnen’s second-degree murder trial watched a videotape of Calnen’s police interview from June 18, 2013, the day after the Hammonds Plains man was arrested in his girlfriend’s death.

“She was at the top of the stairs … and took a swing at me,” Calnen told police while Reita’s mother, Donna Jordan, comforted him in the interview room.

“When I ducked, the momentum of her swing sent her down the steps.”

He said he tried mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on her, but it didn’t work.
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1320994-reita-jordan-died-in-accidental-fall-calnen-told-police


Calnen said he was high on crack cocaine at the time and, after realizing Jordan was dead, panicked because he didn’t want to be blamed.
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/...s-story-on-reita-jordan’s-death-crown-to-jury
 
November 6th:

Via video link, Cpl. Jason Hurley, the RCMP officer who interviewed Calnen, testified Friday that prior to Calnen’s admissions, he did not know what had happened to Jordan or how she died.

Following the re-enactment, Hurley and other officers attended the Ingramport scene.

“I observed the remnants of a fire at a location which was very descriptive, it was almost pinpointed where he told us it would be,” Hurley told the court from Yellowknife, where he now works.

“We were trying to locate the scene where Mr. Calnen stated he burned Reita Jordan’s body.”
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/...-alleged-fall-down-stairs-in-police-interview


The crown also called Neil Barr, a tow truck driver, to the stand. He testified he was called by CAA to pick up Calnen from the woods in Musquodobit after his truck got stuck in the mud. The call happened on the same night Calnen admitted that he disposed of Reita Jordan’s remains..

Reita Jordan’s remains were never located.
Click to expand...

http://globalnews.ca/news/2323595/p...dans-body-as-week-1-of-murder-trial-wraps-up/
 
November 17th:

The Crown and defence spent the morning Tuesday in Nova Scotia Supreme Court arguing about evidence without the jury present after the Crown rested its case Monday afternoon.
When the jury was allowed back in the courtroom, defence lawyer Peter Planetta told them he wouldn’t be presenting any evidence in the case.
Click to expand...

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifa...pected-wednesday-in-halifax-murder-trial.html

Donna Jordan said her daughter was “a caring, loving, beautiful, curly-haired girl that we miss very much.”

Asked if it’s been difficult to listen to some of the testimony, she said, “No, not really.

“Like I told other people, Reita is much more than just this. She was a beautiful human being and we remember everything about her. She’s still with us. She’ll always be with us.

“It hasn’t been difficult at all. We’re proud to be her parents.”
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/1322789-calnen-defence-offers-no-evidence-at-murder-trial

:cry:
 
November 18th - closing arguments:

Crown attorney Rick Woodburn argued that Calnen’s actions after Jordan’s death were enough to show that he was responsible for it, and he urged the jury to disregard Calnen’s version of events...

Defence attorney Peter Planetta argued the Crown’s case just dressed up evidence of Calnen’s actions after Jordan’s death -- which he admitted were “reprehensible” -- in an effort to distract the jury.
“It’s woefully weak,” Planetta said of the Crown’s case.

“You’ve been provided none of the evidence that you would expect in a murder trial.”
Click to expand...

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifa...deliberations-in-calnen-case-on-thursday.html
 
November 19th:

Justice Chipman instructed the jury on what he called the “decision tree,” in which the jurors need to answer a series of questions to reach their verdict.
The first question is, “Did Paul Calnen cause Reita Jordan’s death?” If their answer is no, they must find Calnen not guilty. If not, they go on to the second question.
The second is, “Did Paul Calnen unlawfully cause Reita Jordan’s death?” If the answer is no, they must find him not guilty. If it is yes, they go on to the third question.
The third and final question is, “Did Paul Calnen have the state of mind required for murder,” meaning did Calnen intend to kill Jordan? If the answer is yes, the jury should find Calnen guilty of murder. If it’s no, they should find him guilty of manslaughter.
Click to expand...

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifa...ations-begin-in-paul-calnen-murder-trial.html
 
Before the Crown closed its case on Monday, one of a few voir dires -- trials within trials in which the jury is not present -- in the case discussed the admissibility of a witness, forensic pathologist Marnie Wood from the Nova Scotia Medical Examiners Office.

She had written a report saying Calnen’s version of events -- that Jordan died instantly by falling down the carpeted staircase at his house -- would be “distinctly unusual” if true...

Wood was not allowed to take the stand for the Crown.
Click to expand...

http://www.metronews.ca/news/halifa...ations-begin-in-paul-calnen-murder-trial.html
 
The jury at Paul Trevor Calnen’s trial didn’t hear that a lower-court judge ruled last year that there was insufficient evidence for him to stand trial for second-degree murder...

"“I find that the evidence of Mr. Calnen’s disposal of Ms. Jordan’s body is not capable of giving rise to the inference that he was covering up a culpable homicide,” the judge wrote.

“There is no evidence to support an inference that Mr. Calnen caused Ms. Jordan’s death."...

After the Crown closed its case Monday, the jury was excused while defence lawyer Peter Planetta asked the judge to make a directed verdict of acquittal. Planetta argued there was not enough evidence for a reasonable jury, properly instructed, to reach a verdict of guilty...

Justice James Chipman dismissed the defence motion and allowed the trial to continue.

“I arrive at the conclusion that there is some circumstantial evidence on all the essential elements of the offence of second-degree murder,” Chipman said.
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1323283-jurors-not-told-calnen-freed-on-charge-in-2014
 
Summary:

Jordan, 34, was last seen alive on the afternoon of March 18, 2013, by a man who smoked crack cocaine with her at Calnen’s home on Rising Sun Trail in Hammonds Plains.

Jordan was reported missing about 10 days later, and police began treating her disappearance as a homicide the following month. Calnen was arrested and charged that June.

Jordan’s body has never been found. Police divers recovered charred bone fragments from a lake in the Sherbrooke area, where her family has a cottage.
Click to expand...
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/...tered-after-more-than-6-hours-of-deliberation

The Crown alleges Calnen murdered Jordan after coming home from work March 18 to discover she was leaving him and taking some of his valuables. Calnen hid Jordan’s body in woods in Ingramport and told people she had left him.

After police informed Calnen the case had turned into a homicide investigation, he retrieved the body, burned it and disposed of the ashes. The Crown says Calnen wanted to destroy any evidence about what had caused her death.
Click to expand...
http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1323361-still-no-verdict-at-calnen’s-murder-trial

At the start of his trial, Calnen pleaded guilty to a charge of indecently interfering with human remains but not guilty to murdering Jordan...

Calnen admitted to police that he found some of his belongings — a laptop and a gold ring — in Jordan’s bags...

The prosecutor also pointed to Calnen’s conduct after Jordan’s death. He lied to her mother, one of her friends and a missing-persons police investigator and told them she was gone when he got home from work March 18 so he figured she must have left him
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/...s-story-on-reita-jordan’s-death-crown-to-jury
 
Reita Jordan’s family and friends shrieked in joy and burst into tears Sunday after Paul Trevor Calnen was found guilty of second-degree murder in her March 2013 death...

Calnen, 52, shook his head and gave a loud sigh after the jury forewoman announced the verdict.

Justice James Chipman imposed an automatic sentence of life in prison and ordered that Calnen be taken into custody. He had been free on bail...

Defence lawyer Peter Planetta said the verdict was surprising.

"This case has gone from one that couldn’t get past the hurdle of preliminary inquiry … to evidence (of guilt) beyond a reasonable doubt. How you get from one to the next is a little bit perplexing for me, but it’s what happened.”
Click to expand...

http://thechronicleherald.ca/metro/1323608-jury-finds-paul-calnen-guilty-of-murdering-girlfriend
 
Phew! An interesting no-body murder trial that ended with a guilty verdict...

I wonder what the charred bone fragments turned out to be? I guess they were too degraded to extract DNA from.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

DNASolves

Who is Escambia County John Doe (1989)?

Members online

... and 204 more.
Total: 2,094 (members: 205, guests: 1,889)

Online statistics

Members online
205
Guests online
1,889
Total visitors
2,094
Totals may include hidden visitors.

Forum statistics

Threads
591,812
Messages
17,959,253
Members
228,610
Latest member
Melissawilkinson44
Back
Top