The Crown closes its case in the Robert Badgerow trial

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The crown closed its case against Robert Badgerow for the fourth time today. The Hamilton man is facing charges in the rape, drowning and strangulation of Diane Werendowicz in 1981. He was originally found guilty in 2001, but that verdict was overturned on appeal and two subsequent trials were left with hung juries. This is the first time in Canada that someone has gone to trial four times for the same crime.

This trial has gone much more quickly than the previous trials, in part because some witnesses are gone or too sick to travel so their testimony was read in by lawyers, taking scripts from previous trials. Also most of the legal arguments were already made in the previous trials, so there were few interruptions in the testimony. The trial started September 19th and by 3pm today, Crown Cheryl Gzik told the jury she rests her case.

Brian Root was the first of their last two witnesses. He’s has been a Dofasco worker since 1979 and he worked with Robert Badgerow. In 1981, he went to the phone booth outside gate 6 at Dofasco as often as he could to call his girlfriend Gloria. It was quieter and more private than the phones inside the steel mill, only seconds away and a call only cost a dime. In the late 1990s police revived the Diane Werendowicz cold case and asked people to listen to a suspicious 911 call made two days after her body was found.

“I determined it was Bob Badgerow,” Root told the jury he was 100% certain. Especially this line: she was found face down in the crick with a tire over top of her head and shoulders. Root told the jury Robert Badgerow always said crick in place of creek and that he had a deliberate way of talking.

The last witness, Janice Noble, testified by video from Vancouver. She had only met Werendowicz that night, with friends at Malarky’s bar. She said Werendowicz looked tired after her 12 hour nursing assistant shift and was snitty with men at the bar. Lori Allen, who testified previously, was the co-worker who had invited Werendowicz that night. She was talking to an old boyfriend when Werendowicz left.
“Please tell Lori I’m going home,” Werendowicz said. Noble watched her leave alone. She wasn’t seen again.

Defense lawyer Russell Silverstein told the jury at the end of the day that he will be calling witnesses, starting on Halloween Monday. The first will be Brian Miller, a convicted rapist who was an alternate suspect in the murder. No indication if it will be the case again, but Robert Badgerow has testified in his own defense at his three previous trials.