A Prince George man was found guilty Wednesday of participating in a home invasion in which an elderly woman was bound and gagged with duct tape.
Much of the case against Dillon Benjamin Ertmoed centred on DNA evidence from two pop bottles and a cigarette butt found at the scene that matched samples he had been ordered to provide.
As well, one of the witnesses during the five-day trial before B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ron Tindale testified he heard Ertmoed and an accomplice, Dohn William Schmidt, talk about robbing the South Ogilvie Street home.
The court also heard from the woman, who testified she woke up in the middle of the night on Aug. 24, 2012 to find one or two individuals in her bedroom who put tape on her mouth and around her hands and feet.
The thieves made off with a number of firearms, including three semi-automatic handguns, as well as a 60-inch television and a car parked in the driveway.
The woman also later discovered her wedding ring had gone missing.
Eventually she no longer heard the culprits and made her way to a neighbour's house where the RCMP were called.
One of the woman's sons, who lived in the home's basement but was away at work at the time, testified he first met Ertmoed at a work camp about two years ago and described him as an acquaintance.
Tindale found the goal was to steal the guns and that while Ertmoed may not necessarily have bound and gagged the woman, he was a party to the offence. He also found they had monitored the son's Facebook page to determine when he was away from home.
The guns and some other items were recovered from a home where Ertmoed and Schmidt were living after RCMP executed a search warrant. The car was also located and recovered.
Ertmoed will be sentenced on four counts - break and enter and committing an indictable offence, breaking and entering to steal a firearm, robbery, and knowingly possessing an unauthorized firearm - once a pre-sentence report has been completed.
Schmidt was sentenced in May 2013 to a further three years and eight months in jail after pleading guilty to three counts related to the matter.
