Kitchener jury hears 2 hours of 911 calls at Robert Badgerow trial
Justice Patrick Flynn described it as two hours of intense listening
On Tuesday, the jury in the trial of Robert Badgerow heard two hours of raw unedited audio of 911 calls made to Hamilton police on June 22, 1981. That was the day police received a call from someone who revealed information about the death of Diane Werendowicz, which had not been released to the public.
Defence lawyer Ingrid Grant presented audio of the calls as evidence for the court to hear and the jury to follow along in a transcript.
The audio, which included the original 911 call presented in court in previous trials, also included long segments of the ambient sound of the recorded silence mixed in with conversations Const. Gary Davis had with the people who called the line that day between 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.
White noise
As the audio was presented uncut, there were long and eerie gaps between calls where only an ambient white noise was audible. Those extended segments led some jury members and others in the court to fidget in their seats and have the justice call for an early lunch and an early end to the days court proceeding.
"[We have some] intense listening for the next couple of hours," said Justice Patrick Flynn before the recordings were played.
The now well-known 911 call from the Badgerow trial was the fourth call in the recording from a person who called in saying they had information about the body of Diane Werendowicz. Const. Gary Davis called a superior immediately after the call and proceeded to trying to get in touch with Det. Jack Sutton who was heading up the case.
A 911 call placed from a phone booth close to the steel mill where Robert Badgerow worked was presented as new evidence in this trial.
Work records show Badgerow was on shift by Gate 6 at Dofasco the day the lunch-hour call was made to police, at 12:19 p.m.
Crown Cheryl Gzik said the caller told police information that only the killer would have known, and which had not been released to the public.
Irrelevant calls
Other calls the jury heard in court were about a possible intrusion into a doctor's office, a girl's lost bike, a theft, two calls about a fallen tree on a neighbour's lawn, a man discussing a custody case, a call for an ambulance to a collision, a message asking the 911 dispatcher to let another officer know he needed to call his wife at a pay phone and a personal discussion about attending a baseball game.
The defence team of Russell Silverstein and Ingrid Grant are wrapping up their witness testimony. Badgerow is still expected to testify. He has taken the witness stand in his three previous trials and it is expected he will sit at the Kitchener trial.