Defence says Crown’s case against Jeremy Hall is ‘screaming’ with reasonable doubt

The fire couldn't be big enough. The phone records don't support the accusations. And the motive isn't there.

For these reasons and more, Jeremy Hall's legal team argues he ought to be acquitted in the first-degree murder of Billy Mason.

This case has been screaming for reasonable doubt," said Renee Gregor in her final words to Justice Andrew Goodman during closing arguments Friday.

Over two days, Gregor and co-counsel Dirk Derstine took the judge - who is hearing the trial without a jury - through the evidence of a case that began 14 years ago when Billy went missing.

Hall, now 46, is alleged to have abducted, shot and burned Billy.

The Crown's theory is Hall believed Billy set him up to rip off a drug dealer associated with the Hells Angels, causing members to shoot up his home in retaliation.

In 2013, a jury convicted Hall of first-degree murder. That verdict was overturned on appeal and this current trial was ordered.

The Crown's two main witnesses - Hall's literal partner in crime and his ex-wife - have lied to police and to the court. But it will be up to Goodman to decide if they were lying when they accused Hall of murder.

Derstine suggested there is no way Hall - with help from his criminal partner Jason Lusted - could build a fire big and hot enough to reduce a body to ash.

Drawing from expert witnesses who testified at the trial - a fire expert and two forensic anthropologists - as well as evidence about the size of the woodpile, the amount of hardwood versus softwood available, the weather conditions, the timelines, Billy's height and weight, and his apparent frozen state, Derstine concluded it would be impossible for Billy's body to be so thoroughly incinerated that no trace was ever found.

Cellphone records show a phone belonging to Hall and another belonging to Lusted called each other frequently. The Crown argued the call patterns on the days of the abduction and cremation support their theory of Billy's murder.

Gregor pointed out that pings from cellphone towers seem to have Lusted and Hall calling each other at the very time the truck used to abduct Billy was being set on fire. If they were burning it together, Gregor posed, why would they need to be on the phone with each other?

But Gregor's scenario doesn't fit the evidence.

Goodman asked for a reminder about Lusted's testimony of the truck burning. In fact, Lusted testified that Hall burned the truck while he drove up and down the road in a second vehicle.

Gregor may have been on better footing when she asked why two seasoned criminals, who regularly used burner phones to elude police, would continue to use the same phones for the murder, the cremation and for weeks - and in one case months - afterward?

If Hall is such a cleaver and careful criminal that he could meticulously clean the cremation site so no DNA remains, why would he hold onto an incriminating phone?

These two do not jive," said Gregor.

(Several years - and all kinds of weather - passed between the alleged cremation and the discovery of the burn site by police. That, rather than a stellar cleanup, could explain why no remains were found.)

Though a Crown need not prove motive, the prosecutors have suggested payback drove this murder.

Yet, Hall insists he never met Billy and had no business with him.

No doubt the Crown will address all the same issues during its closing arguments next week as it tries to convict Hall. Again.

Susan Clairmont is a Hamilton-based crime, court and social justice columnist at The Spectator. Reach her via email: sclairmont@thespec.com