Tuesday’s testimony at the murder trial of Derrick Lawlor focused not on Lawlor or his alleged victim Mark McCreadie, but on what happened after McCreadie’s body was discovered.
Lawlor has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in connection with the death of McCreadie.
McCreadie, 50, was found dead on April 10, 2014 in a wooded area on the edge of Victoria Park in Kitchener. He had a stab wound. An autopsy determined that his cause of death was strangulation.
On Tuesday, jurors heard from the City of Kitchener bylaw officers who found McCreadie’s body.
According to the officers, McCreadie’s body was left in an area known to be a meeting place for men looking for sex.
The Crown is expected to base its case on evidence that McCreadie, Lawlor and a third man had met up in that same area the night before McCreadie’s body was found, and that Lawlor had told friends he felt an urge to kill “perpetrators” – his word for men he considered “sexually deviant.”
The bylaw officers testified that, while in the park, they noticed “legs behind a tree,” walked up to the body, and were unable to rouse it. Then they called police.
The trial continues Wednesday.
