Daniel Fawcett’s body was found partially covered with leaves at the base of the big hill in Gibbons Park.
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An early morning jogger spotted him on Nov. 6, 2022, just after 6:30 a.m. She got close enough to see the person was deceased, called the police and remained there to meet them.
“(The witness) told police that the body appeared to be male, that he had a bit of blood on his left stomach where his sweatshirt was slightly pulled up,” assistant Crown attorney Heather Donkers told Superior Court Justice Patricia Moore while reading an agreed statement of facts at the first day of Craig Allan’s trial.
The witness told police she thought the body had been there for a while because of the leaves on and around him. She didn’t touch the body and didn’t see anyone else near it.
The only other people in the park that morning were two women she saw chatting nearby.
The lengthy agreed statement of facts opened the trial of Allan, 50, who was charged in connection with the stabbing death of Fawcett, 52, the former guitarist for the rock band Helix who well-known in London’s music scene and played in an assortment of local bands.
Allan pleaded not guilty at the judge-alone trial expected to last most of the month. Another person already has pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection to the case and is serving a prison sentence.
London police Const. Josh Lofranco was the only witness called by the Crown on Monday. He was the first officer to arrive at the crime scene in the London park.
Otherwise, during the short trial day, the six-page agreed statement of facts was the main piece of evidence, read in by Donkers.
The document described Allan’s arrest on Nov. 11, 2022, at a Tim Hortons in Woodbridge, near Toronto, his subsequent transport to York Regional police headquarters and ultimately to London police headquarters where he was charged with murder.
He was interviewed by Det. Micah Bourdeau and that statement is expected to be introduced during the trial.
Donkers also summarized evidence from two London taxi drivers. One described picking up two people at the London Travelodge on Dundas Street on Nov. 6, 2022, after 2 a.m. and taking them to a Tim Hortons on Oxford Street.
The other cab driver picked up two people just before 5 a.m. on Adelaide Street North near a grocery store and took them to Dundas Street East near a bank.
Donkers also described how the police found a cigarette butt in the park about 15 metres from Fawcett’s body. A DNA analysis determined Allan’s DNA and that of another person was on the butt.
“The DNA is estimated to be greater than one trillion times more likely to originate from Craig Allan than an unknown person,” Donkers told Moore.
The trial continues on Tuesday afternoon with legal arguments.