Cody Allan Legebokoff should be found guilty of second degree murder, not first degree, in the deaths of three women and a teenage girl, defence lawyer Jim Heller is arguing during a closing statement to the jury at the Prince George courthouse.
Heller said Legebokoff has admitted to involvement in all four murders but did not commit them in a planned and deliberate way nor were they committed during acts of sexual assault.
When he testified on his own behalf last week, Legebokoff said the killings of the three women - Jill Stacy Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Frances Maas, 35, and Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23 - were carried out by a drug dealer and two associates.
However, Heller noted Tuesday that Legebokoff admitted to handing them the murder weapons in all three cases.
Heller went through evidence indicating three of the victims were drug users with Stuchenko and Montgomery carrying drug debts. One witness testified he paid off a $500 debt on behalf of Stuchenko and another said Montgomery's head was shaved because she owed money.
Whether Maas was in debt was more questionable according to the evidence Heller reviewed.
Heller went over evidence surrounding Loren Donn Leslie's mental health. Legebokoff has said the partially blind 15-year-old went crazy and began hitting herself with a pipe wrench and then appeared to have stabbed herself with a knife on the night her body was found Nov. 27, 2010 near a gravel pit north of Vanderhoof.
Legebokoff said that in a fit of panic he hit Leslie in the head before dragging her body off into the bush and then fleeing the scene in his pickup truck. Shortly after he drove onto Highway 27, an RCMP officer pulled him over for speeding and then noticed blood on the accused and in his truck.
Leslie had been released from 18 days in psychiatric care less than a week before her death and an RCMP officer found evidence she had been overdosing on medication prescribed to her on the day of her release, Heller noted.
The psychiatrist who was working with Leslie "seemed to minimize a little bit what appeared to be some of the problematic aspects of her mental defect," Heller said and told jury members they did not have to "accept every last aspect of [an expert witness's opinion] as gospel."
Heller went on to evidence showing Legebokoff was a drug user who consumed cocaine and crack cocaine.
He also noted that despite an exhaustive search of Legebokoff's truck, no evidence of Montgomery or Stuchenko were ever found in the vehicle and a tire track investigators came across at the gravel pit where Stuchenko's body was discovered Oct. 20, 2009 was found not to be from Legebokoff's truck.
Likewise, Heller said no forensic evidence indicating Maas had been in Legebokoff's apartment was uncovered nor was evidence of who may have handled a pickaroon, allegedly the weapon used to kill her, found by investigators.
Maas's body was found in L.C. Gunn Park on Oct. 9, 2010. Legebokoff testified he helped dispose of Maas but someone else used a pickaroon he had stored in his truck to finish her off before dragging her away.
