‘It was the face of distress’: Witness encounters with accused the focus at murder trial

As a fire alarm sounded on the 14th floor of a downtown Hamilton apartment building, a curious Linda Cicero stepped out onto her balcony.

There were often firefighters called to the neighbourhood, Cicero testified before a jury Wednesday, and she wanted to see if the alarm in fact carried any weight.

It did.

There was smoke billowing from below where Cicero lived.

A friendly neighbour, the now-67-year-old put on her shoes and began to knock on tenants' doors to advise them of the blaze and see if they needed help.

She ran into Wayne Bell, a bubbly neighbour who lived across the hall. Bell was wearing a tight blue and yellow cyclist shirt. He didn't appear bubbly.

I saw Wayne come around the corner near the stairwell and I said, Wayne, it's a real fire,'" Cicero testified. He walked straight to his apartment and didn't say anything to me. There was no reaction.

I thought, maybe he wasn't in a good mood, because usually he says, Hey, how are you, Linda?'"

Some 15 to 20 minutes later - as she waited on the street with other tenants while firefighters shuffled inside - Cicero saw Bell come out the front steps, distraught, wearing a different shirt.

It was just sadness," Cicero said when asked to describe Bell's face in a photo where he stands alongside a police officer.

Bell, 69, is now on trial for arson and first-degree murder related to the blaze at 200 Jackson St. W. on July 31, 2016. He is accused of setting a seventh-floor apartment unit on fire in an effort to cover up the death of his girlfriend, Marilyn Mitton, 66, who was found dead in her bathtub with stab wounds to the chest.

The second day of proceedings saw five witnesses - two Hamilton firefighters and three tenants of the building on Jackson - called to the stand.

Capt. Glenn Jarvis, whose crew was the fourth to arrive on scene, said a distraught Bell approached him outside the building after he and his partner carried Mitton's limp body to paramedics.

He indicated that person on the stretcher was his girlfriend," Jarvis told the jury. I asked the crew to keep an eye on him."

Minutes earlier, firefighter Kris Hazen, a member of Jarvis' crew, said he saw Bell in the stairwell of the seventh-floor landing. Bell was standing near the east hallway holding the door open.

I told him to get out of there," Hazen testified, later adding Bell was confused looking, not sure what to do" and dirty from the heavy smoke on the seventh floor.

As Bell made way for the lobby, he came face-to-face with Ken Wafer, an acquaintance and building tenant who was doing laundry on the third floor.

Wafer testified that Bell appeared as if he had just experienced trauma.

It was the face of distress," Wafer told the jury. I was really impressed by his eyes, pure red. I asked him if the smoke was thick up there, because his eyes were so red. He mumbled and went on his way."

Bell came down the stairwell pretty slowly," the jury heard. Wafer was left confused by the encounter.

I went back to the laundry room with more questions than answers," he said. I made a joke to myself that Wayne looked like a vampire."

The trial resumes Thursday.

Sebastian Bron is a Hamilton-based reporter at The Spectator. Reach him via email: sbron@thespec.com