Dunkley’s lawyer spars with Hamilton cop over informant as murder trial nears end
A police informant continues be a focal point in the first-degree murder trial of Jermaine Dunkley, two weeks after the prosecution's star witness testified.
Dunkley's lawyer has cited her role in the case as a primary reason to have the proceedings stayed, and on Thursday he accused a Hamilton police officer of feeding her information to implicate Dunkley in the shooting death of Michael Parmer in a parking lot outside a bar in 2005.
While the 39-year-old woman's name is often mentioned in court, the judge ordered that her name cannot be published, because she has been an informant and was in the witness protection program.
Defence lawyer Nathan Gorham called on Det. Sgt. Steve Bereziuk to testify, and raised the issue of the informant telling police the location of the shooting was not the parking lot - and then much later in the investigation reversing herself to say it had, in fact, been the parking lot.
She offered that revised detail in a phone call with Bereziuk, which the officer noted in his homicide case book.
If she has the location wrong, you wouldn't even be comfortable charging him," said Gorham. And you call her, knowing that a conversation not being recorded could be problematic, and she just spontaneously blurts out the one critical detail that you saw as a problem. Is that accurate?"
Yes," said Bereziuk, And I think you're implying that I suggested (it), or put that there, and that's not fair at all. That's what she said. I didn't tell her anything to say ... I did not influence her whatsoever. I don't accept the inference there."
I am saying that interview influenced her in some way," Gorham replied.
I gathered as much," Bereziuk said.
Meanwhile, the defence called a witness who was in the parking lot on the fatal night, who said two men walked through the parking lot seconds before the shooting. He said they appeared angry, and stood about five-foot-five or five-foot-six. (Dunkley played basketball 17 years ago for Cathedral high school, and is listed at six-foot-three in an online sports publication.)
Gorham said he may call Dunkley to testify Friday. The accused has occupied a square on the Zoom trial panel each day, in his orange prison-issue coveralls watching from Barton Street jail.
Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com