Crown makes closing arguments in Badgerow trial

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It’s been 35 years since a young nursing assistant by the name of Diane Werendowicz was raped and murdered. Today the crown wrapped up its case against her accused killer Robert Badgerow and not for the first time. This is Badgerow’s fourth trial, unprecedented in Canada. An original conviction was overturned on appeal and two subsequent trials ended in hung juries.

The crown says this case is simple and he says it’s actually two cases. One in which Robert Badgerow is linked to the murder of Diane Werendowicz by his DNA found inside her and another in which he is linked to her murder by a 911 call made to a phone booth where he was working, in a voice identified as his by his best friend. Two cases together makes this case especially strong, the crown says.

23-year-old Diane Werendowicz had just finished a series of three 12-hour nursing shifts on June 19, 1981. Lori Allen had to convince her to go out after work, as she emotionally testified last month. Once at the bar, Werendowicz was snitty to men and seemed tired. She left with only a goodbye message for Allen. Then the crown says, she followed her usual route home, up Lake avenue until the place detectives found her yellow hair comb. The crown says Lori Allen shouldn’t feel guilty, Robert Badgerow should.

It defies common sense that she would meet a man, then get into his car for sex in the same parking lot her friends were about to return to, he said. Nor does it make sense she carried her panties after sex. They didn’t fall out of her purse with everything else, they were found in the brush near her tied, neatly placed shoes. No DNA on them. If she had walked home after sex, DNA would have drained down her leg, the crown says. The original pathologist didn’t note any back injuries, but the crown says we know her attacker was violent.

The crown asked the jury to compare Badgerow’s voice at his 1982 wedding to the man who called police two days after Werendowicz was found, with information that hadn’t been released. Eugene Kelly was once Badgerow’s best friend. He said he threw up after hearing a few words of the 911 call because he recognized Bob. He was 100% sure. As for where that call came from, the crown reminded jurors tracing was 99.9% accurate even in 1981, although it wasn’t commonly known that calls were recorded and traced. At the time, police had no idea Robert Badgerow was working steps away, or that he would become a suspect 17 years later.

Tomorrow the judge will begin instructing the jury but he won’t finish. Court will not sit Friday so the jury will come back Monday for the end of instructions and that’s when they’ll start their deliberations.