deadmonton - thomas george svekla - trial - 1
On May 9th, 2006 Thomas George Svekla was charged with second-degree murder and indecently interfering with human remains in connection with the death of Theresa Merrie Innes.
On January 2nd, 2007 Thomas George Svekla was charged with second-degree murder and offering an indignity to a human body in connection with the death of Rachel Liz Quinney.
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On February 19th, 2008 Svekla – who prefers that his fellow inmates call him "Mr. Hockey Bag" – went on trial in an Edmonton Court of Queen's Bench courtroom to face the charges.
Acting for the Crown was Ashley Finlayson, assisted by Project KARE prosecutor Clifton Purvis in addition to Marilena Carminati and Karl Wilberg.
Acting for Svekla was defence lawyer Robert Shaigec. Shaigec had earlier pleaded not guilty to all charges on behalf of his client and initially elected a trial before a judge and jury. Svekla later changed his mind and elected to be tried by a judge alone.
Presiding over the trial was Justice Sterling Sanderman.
- February 19th, 2008
Svekla pleads not guilty; Crown makes opening statements and presents evidence. - February 20th, 2008
Witnesses testify to Svekla's dead body tales. - February 21st, 2008
Another dead prostitute found. - February 25th, 2008
Woman testifies to finding body with Svekla; his sister testifies about opening the hockey bag. - February 26th, 2008
Svekla's sister faces cross-examination. - February 27th, 2008
More witnesses testify to Svekla's dead body tales; wiretap evidence is heard. - February 28th, 2008
Wiretap evidence continues.
February 19th, 2008
The trial opened with Thomas Svekla pleading not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of offering an indignity to a body.
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Svekla appeared calm as he entered his four "not guilty" pleas in a low voice, dressed in black jeans, white shoes and a grey polo top, with a clean-shaven haircut, a slightly unshaven face and glasses.
In the packed courtroom some of Quinney's relatives were present, filling the first row and holding each other for support.
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Each was wearing a black sweatshirt or hoodie with Rachel's name and the words "In Loving Memory" embroidered on them. They declined to speak to reporters before the proceedings started.
As Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson began his opening remarks, Svekla was attentive as he sipped at his water.
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Finlayson told the court that more than 120 witnesses would be called to testify over the next few months, and that intercepted phone calls made by Svekla and recordings of police interviews and conversations he had with undercover officers would be heard.
"This is a circumstantial case," he said. "We do not have a confession. We do not have eyewitnesses that saw Thomas Svekla murder either individual.
"In a nutshell, the Crown intends to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Thomas Svekla murdered Rachel Quinney and that Thomas Svekla murdered Theresa Innes," said Finlayson.
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"The theory of the Crown is that Thomas Svekla murdered both Rachel Quinney and Theresa Innes. Both were sex trade workers but that should not define their lives."
The prosecutor stated that although a cause of death was never determined for either Innes or Quinney (neither woman was visibly injured), the medical examiner would testify that inferences could be made from the mutilation of their bodies.
Finlayson told Justice Sanderman that "inferences" would have to be taken from statements made by Svekla in a polygraph examination taken after Quinney's body was found, and how he transported Innes' body in a hockey bag from High Level to Fort Saskatchewan, claiming it contained compost worms.
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Svekla had told RCMP he transported her body in the back of a pickup truck to give her a decent burial, and while he denied being involved in Quinney's death during the polygraph he did say, "I see myself doing that."
The Crown also proposed it would tender "similar fact evidence," the basis for putting Svekla on trial for both murders at the same time.
Foreshadowing later testimony, Finlayson revealed Innes' body was "elaborately" wrapped in three distinct layers and each layer was bound with wire. He said a shower curtain was used as one layer and a deflated air mattress as another and that both objects belonged to Svekla.
The first Crown witness taking the stand was RCMP Cpl. Douglas Standing, established as an expert in forensic identification evidence. Standing testified that he found the body of Innes in a hockey bag discovered in the garage of a Fort Saskatchewan home on May 7th, 2006.
Standing said Innes' body was wrapped in an air mattress, three orange plastic garbage bags, a shower curtain, electrical tape and wire.
The officer told the court about how the evidence inside the bag was processed and examined, and admitted police were unable to find any usable fingerprints on any of the wrappings.
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Media were afforded the opportunity to record the photographic evidence entered into the trial record.
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Police seized this truck belonging to Thomas Svekla.
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The body of Innes as it was first examined in the garage belonging to Thomas Svekla's sister.
Police made their inital cut into the bag in the groin area to first determine the gender of the body.
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Wire found on the rear jump seat of the truck Svekla left at his sister's house. It was there in the truck Svekla's sister first discovered the hockey bag Thomas said contained eight-hundred dollar's worth of compost worms.
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The shower curtain, decorated with dolphins, that the Crown alleges Svekla used to wrap Innes' body.
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The deflated velour air mattress the Crown alleges Svekla used to wrap Innes' body.
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The orange-coloured garbage bags the Crown alleges Svekla used to wrap Innes' body.
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Police had to cut the knotted copper wire in fifty places before they could free the body.
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The first day of the trial ended after monitors were set up and a five-minute video was shown of the crime scene where Quinney's body was found.
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After the screen was filled with shots establishing the location of the rural wooded scene northeast of Sherwood Park, the extent of the mutilation of Quinney's body soon became more than evident. The video showed Quinney's naked and outstretched body – with both breasts and her genitalia cut off.
Family members of the dead girl gasped and cried, and they held each other as the video played. Victims services staff passed around tissues.
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As for Svekla, he looked at the judge, the gallery and the ceiling, but rarely at the screen.
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What the family of Rachel Quinney looked forward to most as the trial of Thomas Svekla began was closure. What they didn't expect was the unexpected surprise as her naked and mutilated body was put on display for a second time: first by her murderer, and then by the Crown prosecutors.
"I'd like to get some closure," said Quinney's mother Delia, seen above on the front cover of the Edmonton Sun. "If he's guilty, put him away."
When the video was played in court, Delia looked angrily over toward where Svekla sat in the prisoners' box. Friends and family of the slain girl hadn't been warned in advance of what was going to be shown.
Outside the courthouse, Delia said she "better never see pictures like that again." But still, the mother said she was ready to learn the all details of her daughter's death.
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"I'm always prepared," she said. "I have a lot of support."
Support would come in handy as Delia Quinney, her family and friends became the eye of a nation-wide media hurricane on a cold and blustery day in Edmonton.
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Charlotte Lajimodiere, married to Quinney's brother, said the family had never seen the footage shown before and it was lucky her husband wasn't in court to see it. The comment was left unexplained.
Lajimodiere pledged members of Quinney's family would attend as much of the trial as possible.
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"It's the end of a long painful journey for the Quinney family," she said.
"We're going to find our way. We all have lives, but we're putting them aside to deal with this. We'll stand beside each other and support each other through it all. It's going to be hard, but we're a strong family.
"For us to see all of the evidence put forward and to see justice prevail in the end, it helps the Quinney family carry on with their healing path and finish their grieving," she said.
Lajimodiere described her sister-in-law in glowing terms as an exuberant and joyous woman.
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"Rachel was the life of the family. I describe her as a little bomb. We never had to ask where she was, you knew she was there. Her presence was immense."
Asked what she'd say to her sister-in-law's killer, Lajimodiere replied: "You took away a good girl, man, a good girl."
That Crown prosecutor Finlayson made a special point of saying both women were more than just sex-trade workers was appreciated, she said, adding the Quinneys were also in court to support the Innes family – as well as Edmonton's other murdered and missing women.
"That's very important," she said. "None of these women grew up saying they wanted to be a prostitute.
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"There's a lot of social issues that lead these women to the streets as a means of survival. That's all it was for my sister-in-law. They fell through the cracks of society and that's where they got lost."
Another prominent face in the crowd was family friend Danielle Boudreau, organiser of an annual Valentine's Day march paying tribute to the missing and murdered women of Edmonton.
Boudreau agreed the trial should highlight the larger issue of the plight of those who live on society's fringe. She said it was important to remember the murders of other women that have gone unsolved.
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"We need an answer so that nobody else goes missing; so nobody else gets murdered," she said. "The number's already big enough. We're here for each other to hold each other and pray for each other."
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Boudreau also launched Justice for Rachel Quinney and Theresa Innes on Facebook, a popular internet social networking site.
February 20th, 2008
On the second day of Thomas Svekla's double-murder trial, Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson called on a pair of witnesses to set the stage for the charged man's culpability in the death of Rachel Quinney.
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Jolene Rea, seen above heading to court, had been friends with Svekla for about three or four years in June 2004. She and Svekla would often drive around in his car, smoking crack in back alleys and parking lots to pass the time.
The 31-year-old woman recalled for the court the time she and Svekla drove out to a field of east of Edmonton – to look at beehives.
About a week later Svekla arrived at Rea's house and told her he had found a body where they had just been. The news surprised the woman as Svekla had never talked about bodies before.
"He told me police might be questioning me because he had found a body," Rea testified. "He said he couldn't tell if it was a male or female, but that's all I can remember."
The woman's memory became the target of defence lawyer Robert Shaigec. Under cross-examination, Rea said she could remember little about where that field was or what route they took to get there. Rea did remember getting out of Svekla's truck to look at the beehives.
In 2004, when news of Quinney's death broke, the RCMP said there were a dozen beehives in the stand of trees where her body was found.
It took police a year to get around to interviewing Rea, and the woman testified she had forgotten many details by the time officers spoke to her.
Shaigec drove home the point by producing a transcript of a police interview in which Rea said, "I don't remember anything."
Investigators had even taken Rea to the field to aid her recollection of events.
After Svekla told her about the body, the friendship between the two took a turn for the worse and Rea said her attitude towards him changed.
"I was a little worried. I tried not to see him much after that."
Throughout Rea's testimony, Svekla stared into space.
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The Crown then introduced its next witness, Brad Ludwick, the owner of an auto-wrecking yard on an acreage near Sherwood Park.
Ludwick testified Svekla used to hang around the yard, buying and trading parts. They had known each other since 1996 and together would sometimes fix up car and "curb" them – privately selling vehicles for profit. At one time he stored one of Svekla's cars in his yard.
Svekla heard that Ludwick was moving to British Columbia and offered to help him out. For Ludwick, Svekla's sudden generosity came out of the blue.
During the week before Rachel Quinney's body was found, Svekla became increasingly anxious for Ludwick to get on with the move. He said something bad had happened, something he couldn't tell Ludwick over the phone.
"He had made the comment that he wanted to get out of Alberta. He wanted to move to BC. He was quite anxious through the entire week to proceeed with the trip," Ludwick testified.
A few days later, on June 12th, 2004, Svekla called Ludwick again – this time from a hotel.
"He mentioned he was in police custody at Franklin's Inn and there was an armed guard outside his door and he couldn't leave," Ludwick testified.
"He said he had found a body. A blond woman. Maybe a prostitute. Her genitals had been cut out and her body was in a state of decay. It was a purplish-pink colour."
Svekla told Ludwick the discovery of a blond woman, who was "18, 19 or maybe 21," "freaked him out" and said police didn't know if the body was male or female because it was flat-chested.
"I thought it was a strange thing to say," recalled Ludwick, who couldn't understand how Svekla could have determined the sex of the body when the police couldn't.
Svekla told Ludwick he had found the body while driving with his girlfriend. They had pulled into a field because Svekla had to relieve himself. After he walked into the bush and came upon the body, he ran back to the truck to get his girlfriend, a sex-trade worker who said, according to Finlayson, she might have known the victim.
He also told Ludwick that police were going to question him, and asked him not to mention the car he had parked at Ludwick's place.
Later that night, Ludwick got a "frantic" call from his stepdaughter saying Svekla had been dropped off at his home. Ludwick and his girlfriend quickly drove back from a barbecue at a friend's house they were attending.
"As we pulled into the yard, we saw Tom carrying a black duffel bag out of the bushes," Ludwick said, adding he then saw Svekla trying to stuff the bag into the trunk of a car.
As Ludwick went to confront him, Svekla was "frantically" and "desperately" trying to close the trunk lid.
"He had stuffed it into the open trunk of the car and was frantically trying to slam the lid shut. ... The trunk wouldn't latch, and he kept slamming and slamming it," Ludwick said.
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"He wouldn't stop to talk to me. He jammed himself in his car and drove right past me. He yelled out the window, 'I didn't kill the girl. I didn't kill the girl.' "
Ludwick also testified about once seeing Svekla use a strong degreaser solvent while doing a "considerable amount of cleaning" to the box area of a white pickup he owned.
He said his son even made a joke about Svekla "wiping the paint off the pickup." As far as Ludwick could see, the truck looked "quite clean" to him.
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Ludwick then saw cross-examination from defence lawyer Robert Shaigec, seen above outside court. He asked Ludwick if he had actually laid eyes on the black duffel bag. Ludwick replied that he had.
"I'm suggesting to you, you never saw Mr. Svekla carry a bag," Shaigec said. "Your wife saw it. She told you she saw it."
For the second time in the day, the defence lawyer pointed to a police interview – this time from 2006 in which Ludwick said five times that his wife had seen the bag, not him.
"It was some kind of duffel bag. I didn't see it. My wife saw that," the statement indicated Ludwick as saying. The statement was repeated by Ludwick during Svekla's preliminary hearing.
Shaigec also had Ludwick admit that Svekla was "guess-timating" the age of the body and said the alleged killer expressed doubt about what he had seen.
Despite his concerns about Ludwick's move to the west coast, Svekla never followed through on the offer to help.
Outside court, it was Ludwick who declined an offer ... this time coming from an agressive CTV Edmonton reporter anxious for a comment for his 3-minute supper-hour live hit.
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"Ah, no, I have no comment," was all Ludwick had to say despite the reporter's efforts (for more, see the Ewasuk watch).
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The trial was set to continue February 25th after an unexplained adjournment was announced by Justice Sterling Sanderman.
February 21st, 2008
Strathcona County RCMP were called out to an acreage northeast of Sherwood Park after a body is found dumped in the snow along a secluded driveway.
The body was later identified as 21-year-old Brianna Danielle Torvalson who police described as a sex trade worker. Project KARE was called in to assist with the case » full details »
February 25th, 2008
The second week of the trial began with testimony from a woman who was with Svekla when Rachel Quinney's body was discovered in a field east of Edmonton.
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26-year-old Shannon Millward (shown above in January 2007) told the court that on June 11th, 2004 Thomas Svekla picked her up in his white pickup truck early in the morning near 107th Avenue and 109th Street. Although Millward was a sex-trade worker, Svekla told her they weren't together for sex – he just wanted somebody to smoke some crack with.
"(He said) 'If you're not doing nothing come with me for awhile,'" she said.
"He said at the beginning there was no sex involved. He said he didn't want to be my trick. He just wanted to hang out," Millward said.
Together they drove around for hours, making the occasional quick stop at several southside parking lots to smoke crack – of which Svekla seemed to have an endless supply, according to the woman.
At sunrise, Svekla asked Millward if she wouldn't mind a drive outside the city. After travelling some distance in the general direction of Sherwood Park, Svekla stopped the truck.
"Tom said he needed to go to the bathroom," Millward said. "He went out of the truck."
Millward said Svekla quickly returned moments later with a weird look on his face.
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"He came back right away and told me there was a dead john in the field under a clump of trees."
The woman thought he was kidding, looking for a way to "ditch" her.
"(I said), 'Yeah, right, quit fucking around,' " she said.
"The look on his face, something about the look on his face. I made him show me and there was a body there," Millward testified.
She walked 20 to 30 feet from the truck and saw Rachel Quinney's body. The grass was tall and the body wasn't easy to see, she said.
"It was definitely a human form. It was puffy, like she had been there a while. I didn't even know it was a female. I immediately wanted to get out of there.
"She was pretty bad. She was cut up from the top of her thighs," Millward said. "Her total genitals, as near as I could see, was all cut out."
Despite the unusual discovery, Millward and Svekla simply drove to another area and smoked some more crack cocaine. As she testified, Millward rolled her eyes.
Millward said she wasn't wary of Svekla. "At that point, it didn't even cross my mind he would be a suspect," she said.
Nevertheless, Millward felt the body had to be reported. Even anonymously, the couple felt they were too high to talk to police. Besides, Svekla was concerned he would be thought of as a suspect.
"Tom was kind of worried they would think he had done it," she said.
The two eventually made their way back into the city. Together they had made plans to report their finding of the body the next day but Svekla called police at about 10 p.m. Officers contacted her the next day.
Some time later, Millward thought about going back to the rural site to show a friend where the body was. She changed her mind, saying she couldn't go through with it. "Seeing it once was enough."
Under cross-examination from Svekla's defence lawyer, Robert Shaigec, Millward admitted that she was a heavy drug user. While she believed it didn't affect her memory, she would laugh when she couldn't remember specific details on the stand.
Laughs also came from the gallery when she declared she had been telling the truth during police interviews.
"Saying I was a prostitute and was smoking crack with a man I had just met ... I would have given a better story," she said.
Millward said she couldn't forget the incident – once she realised the man she was with was a suspect in the crime.
"Now I don't really want to forget it," she said. "Now it's more important to me."
Under further cross, Millward described Svekla as being "distraught and panicky" and "very" upset at the time of the discovery.
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As she was leaving the courthouse, it was Shannon's turn to be distraught as she tried to evade media.
Next on the Crown's witness list was Donna Marie Parkinson, one of Svekla's six older sisters.
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In a shaking voice, Parkinson testified about her brother's actions in June 2004. Thomas arrived at her house one day, upset and crying.
"He was rambling on about how he couldn't tell me what happened and that I would hate him. 'I did something real bad. I did a bad thing,' he said. 'You will hate me. People will hate me.' "
The worried sister repeatedly asked him what he had done. Svekla said he had partied all night, but said little else. Parkinson thought his appearance was strange.
"For someone partying all night, he had a snow-white shirt, clean black pants and white socks. I could see them because he had no shoes," Parkinson testified.
The woman noted her brother's arms were freshly and badly scratched.
"What cat attacked his arms? There were not one or two scratches, they are clawed up like it was one hell of a mean cat. His arms were scratched to hell," she said.
On the stand, Parkinson said Svekla showed up unexpectedly at her home and told her he had found a woman's body. Soon she heard two versions of how it happened.
Svekla told her he had parked his truck in a rural area when a woman he was with got mad at him and ran away. He said that when he ran after her, he tripped over a female body.
When he told the story again, Parkinson said Svekla told her he first found the body while seeing if a nearby tractor was turning into the same field as he was.
Parkinson also recalled Svekla stating he needed to either "bury or burn or drive a car off a bridge." Svekla never clarified which car he was talking about.
Parkinson told the court her brother said he felt bad for whoever the dead woman was and that she deserved to be buried.
Svekla was scared but also "very calm," Parkinson testified.
She asked her brother why he hadn't called police. After demanding that he do so, Svekla called RCMP from her house.
On March 2nd, 2006 Svekla was sent to jail for breaching bail conditions in an unrelated case. On May 4th he was released from custody in High Level. Two days later he showed up at his sister's house with a hockey bag.
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Parkinson testified she saw her brother after his mother brought him to her Fort Saskatchewan home. She watched as Svekla loaded a hockey bag into the back of her truck.
"It was quite heavy. You could see he was struggling with it. I was standing right there," Parkinson stated. Curious as to the contents she asked, "What the hell is that?"
Svekla told her a friend named Terry had given him $800 worth of compost worms wrapped in little capsules to give to another friend. His sister didn't buy it.
"It didn't make sense. Why would anyone give someone who just got out of jail compost worms? It did not sound right."
Parkinson had earlier gone on record saying she couldn't believe anybody would trust her brother with $800 worth of anything.
When her brother and mother left for an appointment, Parkinson decided to check the bag. Keeping her eye peeled for her brother, she reached into the back of the truck's extended cab and felt the bag.
"I felt something and it seemed like an elbow joint. I pulled my hand back. I took a deep breath and I could barely breathe."
Parkinson made her husband Jim feel the bag. But he told her she had felt the seam of the hockey bag.
Jim was about to go to work and Parkinson testified she was scared that she and her son would be alone with Svekla once he returned from the appointment.
"My heart just went ka-boom. Knowing what I know, but trying to hide what I know. Jim is gone, Mom is gone and I'm alone with Tommy."
Later in the day, Svekla offered to take his nephew Kyle to the park. Parkinson made sure she went with them.
"Wherever Tommy and Kyle went, I went with them. There was no hope in hell he was going to the park with my kid."
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After Thomas, Donna, Kyle and Svekla's mother had a picnic in Parkinson's backyard. Svekla's mother then took her son to her house for the night.
By the time Jim got home from work it was shortly before midnight. Parkinson was waiting for him in the driveway. She had gloves on her hands.
"We're going in," she told Jim. "I want to know what is in that bag."
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The couple unzipped the bag in their garage and saw something tightly wrapped in a mustard-yellow air mattress.
Parkinson recognised the air mattress. It was similar to one given to her brother the year before.
"We opened the bag right up," Donna said. "We stood there and looked. I squeezed and said it's too hard, that's not compost worms."
Parkinson realised what the shape represented before her husband did.
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"Do you not see what I see?" she recalled for the court. "That is the head. Here's the back. These are the hands, these are the knees and these are her feet."
Parkinson then called police. The RCMP arrived ... and the body would later be identified as Theresa Merrie Innes.
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The woman who described her relationship with her brother as "close" seemed markedly distant when leaving court.
Wearing a purple dress shirt and sporting a newly-grown moustache, Svekla stared straight ahead throughout his sister's testimony, daring not to catch her eye.
February 26th, 2008
The trial continued with Donna Parkinson on the stand, this time answering questions from defence lawyer Robert Shaigec.
Shaigec set the stage for his strategy with the witness.
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"You consider yourself an honest person?" he asked.
"That is correct," Parkinson responded.
"You would not lie to police?"
"That is correct."
The lawyer then focussed on a number of discrepancies between the statements Parkinson gave to police on June 12th, 2004, and later in 2006, and her testimony of the previous day.
At one point Parkinson herself suggested some of the statements in the two-inch pile placed in front of her should not be admissible because she was suffering from a lack of sleep and pain from a knee surgery 48 hours before.
"Do you know what I think of this statement? I don't think it should be used. We shouldn't use this one because I just got out of hospital," she said of the earlier statements. "I wasn't on pain medication ... and I was doing it in a lot of pain."
Shaigec quoted from Parkinson's 2004 statement which offered a third version of Svekla's possible discovery of two bodies: "He thought he saw a skeleton from his truck.
"From what I understand, he started running because he thought he might be killed himself." Parkinson told police at the time that her brother thought it might be a "setup" and that he tore out of there “like a bunch of banshees.”
In the statement, Parkinson stated her brother also tripped over Quinney's body.
Asked to explain why she didn't tell officers of the accounting heard at trial, Parkinson said she didn't want to waste RCMP' time with multiple versions of the same story.
In one defiant moment, Parkinson held up her statement to Shaigec and said, "This is what I chose to believe from what Tom had told me."
In earlier testimony she testified that Svekla told her the body was female. In her statements she told police her brother didn't know the sex of the body.
Shaigec took Parkinson to task over testimony that she saw her brother with very bad scratches on his arms a week before Quinney's body was discovered, scratches so deep they couldn't have been made by a cat or bushes as Svekla told her.
The lawyer quoted a police statement. An officer asked "were they easy to see?"
"No, they were very faint, very light" was Parkinson's reply. She added they looked like they had been made by a cat.
On the stand, Parkinson said the scratches appeared "fresh" and "carved."
For the rest of the day, Shaigec continued to list off examples of how Parkinson's version of events changed over time – mainly to his client's disadvantage.
Stopping just short of calling it an obsession, Svekla's lawyer said Parkinson became so suspicious of her brother that she began to change her story to make him look more guilty.
The defence lawyer also pointed to contradictions between Parkinson's statements and testimony about Svekla's mood and clothing on the day he told her he had "done a bad thing."
In her police statements, Parkinson said her brother appeared calm when he told her of finding Quinney's body and that he was almost "falling asleep."
But in court she testified that he appeared so agitated "I thought he was going to have a heart attack."
On the matter of Svekla's appearance, Parkinson testified at the preliminary hearing that she thought her brother seemed too tidy for someone who claimed to have been up all night – describing him as freshly shaven and wearing an immaculate, freshly pressed white shirt.
In her original statement she said "it looked like he needed another shave" and that the shirt "looked like he slept in it." At the time Parkinson thought the shirt was light blue in colour.
Also in her original statement she told police she didn't know where Svekla got the hockey bag. Later she told them it was from someone named Terry or Theresa.
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As the day wore on, Parkinson became defensive and testy, providing terse answers and at times arguing with Shaigec. It reached the point where Justice Sterling Sanderman had to ask her to stop.
"We're not having a discussion. I'm asking questions," Shaigec said, reminding her of the process at hand.
The defence lawyer then detailed Parkinson's increasingly frequent calls to police.
Shaigec said she once asked officers to investigate a 6-foot deep pool in the front yard of her home because Svekla had once stood in front of it for a long period of time. He could have tossed something in, she figured, telling police it hadn't been cleaned out yet.
Svekla once joked a spot under his sister's deck would be a good place to hide a body. Parkinson then insisted police remove several of the boards.
Another time, 3 pairs of men's underwear were found between some floor joists during a home renovation. The police were called and Parkinson suggested they send the garments off for DNA testing.
Then there was a red stain on a blanket she once lent Svekla. It could be blood, she suggested, even though the stain occurred well before the discovery of Quinney's body. Her brother had told her it was from a jelly doughnut.
And then there was the time she told police to check to see if her brother might have used an excavator at the auto yard he often visited. Parkinson suggested the equipment may have been used to bury a vehicle.
It got to the point, Shaigec told the court, that Parkinson was calling police with new tips three times a week, always suggesting where they might find more evidence against Svekla.
"You have taken a very active role in providing information to Project KARE ... as often as three times a week?" asked the lawyer.
"That is correct," came Parkinson's short reply.
"Any time a thought came to your mind of something that might implicate your brother, you call police," Shaigec returned.
For effect, the lawyer quoted from a statement she gave police after one of her calls: "Here's my imagination going wild."
In the defence's imagination, the attack detailing the variations of Parkinson's recollections and her zeal for helping police was intended to score points in the case heard before a judge only. It may have been also to establish some doubt about Svekla's involvement in Quinney's death.
But during all the time he spent with the Crown witness, not one word was said about the body in the hockey bag.
As he heard his sister's testimony, Svekla sat expressionless with his head back against the wall. He simply stared straight ahead, stealing only a rare glance at the witness box.
February 27th, 2008
Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson continued with his parade of witnesses, putting three more on the stand to testify that Thomas Svekla had told them about discovering a body on June 11th, 2004.
First up was Susan Nichols, one of Svekla's former landlords. Nicholas told the court that Svekla boarded at her west-Edmonton home for nearly four months in the summer and fall of 2004.
She eventually evicted the man, but not before he told her about finding a body outside Edmonton.
"One day he said he went for a drive and found a dead body in a farmer's field," Nichols said. "He seemed upset about it."
The woman told Svekla he should call police. He said he hadn't.
Nichols also said her one-time tenant told her that he even took friends out to the site to show them the body.
Defence lawyer Robert Shaigec questioned the woman on that point, and Nichols conceded her memory wasn't perfect about Svekla telling her he had brought other people to see the body.
In summer 2004, Svekla also showed up at the home of a chum of 15 years, Denny Jansen, in Fort Saskatchewan. Denny wasn't home but his father Dick was.
On the stand the older Jansen said Svekla wanted to talk to his friend about a problem. Jansen testified Svekla was "agitated," and when he asked if he could help Svekla said no.
As Jansen walked him to his car, Svekla blurted out with his now oft-told tale.
"He then told me he found a body. He was wandering around and found a body. He was on his own," Jansen testified.
"He told me everything was OK with the RCMP. They were investigating, and as far as they were concerned he was in the clear."
"I liked the guy," Dick admitted. "He was a nice guy."
The Crown's next witness came from an unexpected place: jail.
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In February 2006, 63-year-old St. Albert realtor William Maloney was stabbed to death in his home.
Lisa Anne McKay – above, then 25 – was charged with second-degree murder in the matter. She was sentenced to six years and five months in prison, with Judge Jeanne Burch reasoning there was reasonable hope for McKay’s rehabilitation.
On the stand McKay testified she had smoked crack with Thomas Svekla, together picking spots in the city's northeastern outskirts so they wouldn’t have to share it with people at the drug houses they usually hung out at.
While driving around in 2004 and getting high, Svekla told McKay that he was with a girl named Shannon in his truck outside the city just before discovering a body.
"She had gotten paranoid, went out of his truck and found the body," McKay recalled for the court.
Svekla told her the police blamed him, and McKay empathised. "I would never think Tom would be involved in anything like that," she said.
Despite her confidence in Svekla's innocence, McKay admitted she felt nervous once when he stopped the truck and got out to open his tool box.
“The lifestyle I was leading, I knew it was dangerous, and that's how I thought,” she testified.
As has been the case with all the witnesses so far, Svekla avoided eye contact – even as McKay was led back to cells by court sheriffs.
Apart from the four "not guilty" pleas uttered on the first day of the trial, the voice of Thomas Svekla had yet to be heard.
That changed when taped conversations Svekla had with both his sister and mother were played in court.
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Recorded over a two-day period in late August 2006 while he was in custody at the Edmonton Remand Centre, the conversations included those made over the phone and during face-to-face visits.
Svekla boasted to his sister of his notoriety within the centre – aware also of the danger his fame bestowed.
About the special unit he was held in, he told Donna Parkinson: "They only keep 12 people up there. You have to be famous, or high profile. People on the news."
Svekla said he grew his hair long to disguise his appearance, telling his sister a lot of the inmates were "out to get him.
"If I'm in the paper, if I'm in the news, I become a target," he told her during a face-to-face visit.
"Cause like 'That's that serial killer, let's get him,' you know. I'm like the Pickton of Alberta."
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"Who the hell said this?" Donna queried.
"The paper. There's – I'm being investigated for all those hookers around there have been dumping off, over there," Svekla replied.
Convinced police had no evidence against him, Svekla told Donna and their mother, Emily Svekla, that he was going to make a lot of money once he was found not guilty and filed a wrongful arrest lawsuit.
"I got a nice chunk of change waiting for me when this is all said and done. What do you think of that, Donna? That's an acreage."
Svekla already had a site picked out north of Legal, one that looked nice to him when he was driven by on the way to a court appearance.
“I think that'd be a pretty good place to live,” Svekla said.
Despite two charges of second-degree murder, Svekla seemed confident he would be found not guilty.
"They got nothing, Donna. I might get out next year, on bail. They can't hold me here," he said, adding that he had an alibi.
"For a motive, they think I'm a serial killer. That's the only motive. I think it's kind of funny, actually."
Svekla claimed he had no idea how Theresa Innes died, but was worried there may have been a mess on his sister's garage floor after she opened the hockey bag. The siblings discussed the opening of the bag, with Svekla bringing the subject up several times.
"I stopped when I unzipped it," Donna said.
"What?"
"I stopped when I unzipped the bag," she said.
"Oh that's it? Oh, that's okay then. Cause it's kind of squishy. I didn't, I didn't want to open the fucking thing, you know. That's why I was wondering if it made a mess on the floor.
"It must have been a mess. Did I make a mess? When you had to open it up, did blood go everywhere or what?"
Svekla thanked his sister numerous times, suggesting her act was a salvation of sorts, a chance to interrupt his life of booze and drugs.
"You know ... what kind of life would I have had? You know my conscience would have been bothering me ... and the girl is back with her family. You did good. I love you."
Svekla said he didn't think Innes' body had been in the bag for long.
"I don't think it was very old – because it didn't smell that bad."
Svekla reassured his sister that she had done the right thing by calling police.
"Donna, you did good. Don't ever think you did wrong. You did the right thing, I love you."
Sensing he could be found guilty of murder, Svekla told Parkinson he would appeal and either be exonerated or have the conviction reduced to manslaughter. He predicted the latter would net him a three-year sentence.
“That's the going rate these days,” he said, adding he would be out of jail by the time he was 45.
Svekla's tune changed somewhat in a telephone call to his mother the next day. He said "he didn't totally forgive" Parkinson, suggesting that if he did, it would "look good for court.
"They're probably going to get her to testify. I'm trying to get her not to, you know what I mean?"
Svekla told his mother the only reason he was talking to his sister was so Donna would eventually feel guilty for calling police and not testify against him in court.
“I needed to tell her that I loved her, and it's OK,” he said. “It’s OK, mom. I’m not broke up about it.”
With his mother Svekla also discussed his status as a serial killer.
“It's kind of funny because I’m not. They won’t find any DNA of mine on her because I wasn’t with her. I was busy with those other girls.”
During one recorded conversation, Svekla ironically referred to Lisa McKay – who had testfied earlier in the day. Referring to the sentence handed her just six weeks before the remark, Svekla said she got off easy with just a six-year jail term.
An edited version of the wiretap evidence presented in court can be heard here – opens in .mp3 format.
Below is a transcription of Sveka's side of the recording.
You did good, seriously. You did what was right, OK.
You know, what I was planning on doing ... Donna, you did good, I love you OK? Alright?
You know, how ... what, what kind of life would I would have had? My conscience would have been bothering me, you know ... and the girl is back with her family. You did good. I love you. That's why I love you. I'm absolutely happy too.
Everyday, everyday here ... things are good here. I'm safe, I'm alive, I'm not doing drugs.
This is a lot to handle but you know what, I'm happy doing, man, I'll handle it man.
That must have been a mess, man. Did I make a mess? When you had to go open it up to make it ... oh, that's it? Oh that's OK then.
Cause it's kind of squishy and ... [I didn't,] I didn't want to open the [fucking thing, you] know. That's why I was wondering if it made a mess on the floor. Is there?
I don't think it was very old you know Donna, I don't think it was very old ... because it didn't smell that bad.
But there's no evidence yet. They don't know why I'm ... I have no idea when this person died or nothing. No.
Because they don't have evidence they can't hold me here. So they'll let me go. It's no big deal.
They have nothing, Donna. Like I might be get, I might be getting out of here next year.
They only keep 12 people up there. And you got be like like, famous, or high profile. People on the news. Like Michael White was up there for a while, he's gone.
The guy who shot that eighteen-year-old girl on her birthday ... William ... what, what, whatever his name is, he was up there.
The guy who beat up those guards ... you know the guy who beat up that guy in remand there, Bull. He almost killed him, well he's still in a coma.
I meet some really nice people you know that ... but I have totally faith – no one can get me. I'm totally separated, no one can get me. But there's some people out to get me.
When I'm in the paper, I'm in the news, I become a target. Cause like 'That's that serial killer, let's get him,' you know. I'm like the Pickton of Alberta.
I'm being investigated on all those hookers around there have been dumping off, over there. What?
Cause I lived around the area – I knew the area they're in. I found Rachel Quinney, you know. That's why they took my vehicle from [unintelligible]. They took 'em, they're keeping 'em.
February 28th, 2008
The trial resumed with more wiretap evidence being heard.
Telephone conversations between Thomas Svekla and his sister that took place on August 27th, 2006 were played in court, and the accused murderer likened being caught with a dead body to simple possession of stolen property. He also complained that the RCMP and others had set him up.
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"Think of it as stolen property," Svekla told Donna Parkinson in the call from the Edmonton Remand Centre. "You're caught with stolen property, doesn't mean you stole it."
Svekla again referred to himself as "a Pickton of Alberta" in the conversation.
"Like the, like in the papers they proclaiming that I'm a serial killer, like, like a Pickton of Alberta, you know?"
"And the're really digging deep, like they're talking to people in high school about me. Like the investigators and stuff."
Parkinson asked Svekla why he told so many people about finding Rachel Quinney's body.
"I'm a big blabbermouth, you know?" he replied.
Svekla also took issue with the police, claiming RCMP investigators had told his friends in High Level "you're not safe areound Tom."
"I was well-known in High Level for being a dangerous guy. I was set up."
Svekla suggested his predicament was due to people in the town who were out to get him after word got out he was a suspect in the death of Rachel Quinney.
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"I've got enemies in High Level," he said, suggesting police and a mystery person put the body of Theresa Innes in his truck behind the Fountain Tire outlet where he worked.
"Cause people are jealous, and everybody knew that was my truck in town, and everybody in town knew about that story. About Rachel Quinney. Right?"
The man again expressed confidence that he would be found not guilty, saying he was impressed with his lawyer Robert Shaigec.
"So, uh, Robert took me on and he's a, he's a good lawyer. Holy crap. He knows his stuff, man."
"Well, has he asked you why?" Donna asked.
"Why what?"
"Why didn't you just call the cops?"
"He knows," Svekla said. "I didn't have to tell him. He said 'Yeah, I understand, Tom. They have nothing on you and with your record, it's understandable, you know. Yeah, you were caught with a body, but that's it. There's no evidence stating you murdered her, that person.' "
"I was found with a body but that's it," Svekla said. "They have no evidence that I killed her."
"If things don't go my way I'll find another lawyer," he said. "I'll be found not guilty on every charge, 'cause all that stuff is bullshit charges."
"There's lawyers pounding on my door for my case. It's a winner" Svekla's sister. "My lawyer, when he wins this case, it's going to be good for his firm."
Svekla again touches on his status in the remand centre.
"Yeah that's, 'cause it's just I'm a, I'm a famous ... [laughs] special, high level – security."
Sitting in the prisoner's box, Svekla showed no emotion as his voice filled the courtroom through loudspeakers.
A longer version of the August 26th, 2006 wiretap evidence was made available to media and it can be heard here. Note: large file – runs 32 minutes and opens in .mp3 format.
A recording of Svekla's August 27th, 2006 conversation with Donna Parkinson can be heard here – opens in .mp3 format.
Svekla can be heard discussing a stolen car police were interested in, and how he would be found not guilty on the various High Level assault charges pending at the time.
As a bookend to the wiretap evidence, court heard from Rory Campbell, one of Svekla’s former co-workers.
Campbell testified he picked up Svekla shortly after he found Quinney’s body. Like others, Svekla told him about finding her body and said he couldn’t tell if it was that of a man or a woman.
The man said he took Svekla to his home in Edmonton, where he stayed for three days.
The trial continued March 3rd, 2008.
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This page updated
20:07 2008-02-28.