A B.C. Supreme Court Justice has found two men not guilty of firing a shotgun at a Quesnel home after concluding the alleged victim's evidence was not credible.
Justice Ron Tindale's decision largely came down to whether Josephine Pacholok was able to get a clear view of the two men she saw outside her 432 Hartley Street home during the early morning hours of June 2, 2012.
Pacholok testified she was in bed with her husband when she woke up to the sound of her dogs barking and looked out the window to see Robert Michael Mero and Kale Raymond Lewis Comeau in front of the home, one carrying a shotgun and the other a handgun.
She said Mero yelled out "you're fucking dead, bitch," and fired four shots as she fell to the floor and was hit by glass from the breaking window.
However, Tindale said the lighting at that time of day - it was shortly after 4 a.m. and the sun would not rise until 4:50 a.m. - was not optimal and based on her evidence, Pacholok had only a fleeting glance of the accused. She also testified the two were wearing hoodies although she maintained their faces were not obscured. Tindale also noted that according to testimony, the bedroom was very cluttered, which would have made it difficult for anyone to make it to the window
But most troubling for Tindale was that Pacholok changed her story on who may have been the third person she also saw at the scene. She initially identified him as a Rick Cheveray but later claimed it was Shawn Oakley.
During the trial, the court heard that Pacholok's husband and son, Delbert and Myles, made off with a laptop and flat screen television after committing a home invasion on Oakley's home. Police later found both items in the Pacholoks' home.
A witness during the trial described Oakley's home as a drug house and during cross examination, Pacholok confirmed that her husband and son are involved in the drug trade and she had been in the past.
Tindale said the change in Pacholok's evidence on who the third person was coincided with police informing her that Cheveray could not have been involved in the crime. Pacholok based her identification of Cheveray on the fact he was bald and agreed she knew what Oakley looked like and he was not bald.
Police obtained text and telephone conversation that Tindale said indicated Mero had a motive to commit the act and was in the vicinity of the Pacholok's home prior to the shooting. However, he said the evidence as a whole, as well as the intercepted communications, also established that a number of other people may have had a motive to commit the shooting.
Tindale's decision was reached Oct. 9 and posted online this week.
