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metroLIFE THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 2017
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Jurors deliberate GARLAND TRIAL
‘Decision trees’ given to jury Lucie Edwardson
Metro | Calgary
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Jurors in the Douglas Garland triple-murder trial were handed “decision trees” by Justice David Gates Wednesday before heading into the jury room to begin their deliberations that would lead to a verdict. Douglas Garland, 57, is accused of first-degree murder in the 2014 deaths of Alvin and Kathy Liknes and their five-year-old grandson, Nathan O’Brien, who had stayed for an impromptu sleepover the night of June 29, 2014. Gates told the jurors the decision trees asked them a number of questions that would lead them to a guilty or not guilty verdict of first-degree murder, second-degree murder or manslaughter. He said the
decision trees for Alvin and Kathy Liknes were the same, but the one for five-year-old Nathan O’Brien differed slightly. “Nathan’s presence was in all likelihood a surprise,” said Gates. Gates said in order to find Garland guilty of first-degree murder in the death of the five-year-old the Crown would have had to prove to them that Nathan was “unlawfully confined” (mentally, physically or was injured under Garland’s control) before being killed. The other way for a first-degree murder conviction to be reached for Nathan is that the Crown proved to the jurors that once Garland discovered Nathan’s presence he incorporated him into his overall plan. Gates said if jurors believe the Crown proved Nathan was alive at his grandparents’ home and taken to the farm to be killed would also result in a first-degree conviction, whereas if they believe he was killed at the Likneses’ home it could be a second-degree conviction.