Marissa Shephard's trial: portraits of a troubled young woman

For the better part of nine weeks, 22-year-old Marissa Shephard has sat quietly in the prisoner's box, with a sheriff nearby, while the Crown presented its case against her.

Shephard has been on trial for first-degree murder in the death of 18-year-old Baylee Wylie and for arson with disregard for human life.

Wylie's body was found in Shephard's burned townhouse in December 2015. Two young men are already in prison for killing him.

In court, Shephard sat quietly during days of evidence and testimony from police officers and experts called as the Crown presented its case against her.

She sat facing away from the court, watching the video screen on her right, often hidden behind a veil of long brown hair during the playing of hours of taped testimony given by Devin Morningstar, one of the 20-year-olds convicted of Wylie's murder.  

On April 30, Shephard got the chance to tell her side of the story —  about what happened the night she, Wylie, Devin Morningstar and Tyler Noel were in her Moncton townhouse, doing drugs, and Wylie wound up dead, stabbed more than 100 times. 

Part of her testimony was about her own life.

Shephard's life in her own words

Shephard told the court she became pregnant in Grade 9 and dropped out of school. She tried to go back on two different occasions, the first time leaving because of embarrassment over her growing belly.

Her school friends did not understand her situation, she said.

When her son was three years old, Shephard was living with her mother and stepfather. She said she wanted to try school again, but she couldn't find a full-time babysitter and didn't return.

Under questioning from defence lawyer Alison Menard, she said she has since earned her GED.

Throughout her testimony, Shephard painted a troubled picture of her mother, Christine Carson, whom she told the court died of a drug overdose in November 2017.

A mother's gift 

After Shephard talked about her drug use, Menard asked when she first tried crack.

"The first time I ever smoked crack I was 12 years old," Shephard said. "My mom got me drunk for my birthday."

She said Carson gave her crack to help sober her up.

"I didn't like it, it was a bad first experience … it wasn't my drug of choice."

Carson got in trouble with the law in the fall of 2016 and suffered some mental health problems. 

She spent a month at the Restigouche Hospital Centre in Campbellton and was deemed unfit to be tried or held criminally responsible for stealing cigarettes from Irving gas stations in Moncton and threatening an employee by claiming she had a gun.

But other statements from Shephard give the impression she looked to her mother for security and help during her troubled young life.

When Shephard wanted her son removed from 96 Sumac St., because everyone there was on drugs, she called her mother to pick him up.

While her mother did not approve of her lifestyle, she would bring her daughter her methadone, taken to help treat Shephard's opiates addiction.

Shephard described herself as sober during the summer of 2015, saying she only did a bit of cocaine and drank alcohol.

After breaking up with a boyfriend, however, she grew lonely and depressed living alone with her son at on Sumac.

She started sleeping over at her parents' house more often, eventually moving to their Riverview home around the end of August. Shephard said Carson let her live in a separate in-law suite in the basement with her son, as long as she lived under certain conditions, including no partying or drugs.

Shephard said she followed the rules, for a while.

A friendship rekindled

Shephard said she knew Wylie from when they were children, but the two reconnected during the summer of 2015.

"We clicked really well," she told the court.

One thing they had in common was their line of work, Shephard said. She started working as a prostitute at age 17 to make money, unable to live the more comfortable lifestyle she'd grown used to growing up with her "well-off" parents.

Shephard attracted clients through an ad posted online, where she identified herself as Emily.

Wylie earned money the same way, so they decided to work together, sharing a phone, and making "sure each other were OK," Shephard said.

Wylie secretly moved into Shephard's parents' in-law suite in the fall. She said her mother and stepfather didn't approve of Wylie, so he would hide if Carson came downstairs to visit her daughter. Shephard said her consumption of cocaine and prescription drugs increased during this time.

Shephard, Wylie and Shephard's son lived in the Riverview in-law suite until Wylie was discovered by Carson sometime in late November or early December 2015.

Shephard said her mother was angry, and the trio packed up a few belongings and left, returning to her New Brunswick housing unit on Sumac Street.

Describing it as a drug house, Shephard said she had lent her home to friends while she was away and they left it dirty and messy.   

Within three weeks Baylee Wylie was murdered.

The defence: no physical evidence

Defence lawyer Gilles Lemieux delivered his final arguments from a podium placed directly in front of the jurors. The only thing between them and him was a table covered in exhibits, many wrapped in plastic and brown paper.

He started by saying, "In this case, much of the evidence is there for volume not for value."

One by one, Lemieux addressed the objects, removing them from the table as he went. For example, he held up a package wrapped in plastic, saying he wasn't even sure what it was.

"That's the infamous folder, maybe? No one has talked about it," he said to the jury,  

Lemieux dismissed items that were not discussed during the trial, such as a bag containing two baseball caps and a bottle of Tag body spray.

Other items, such as a broken piece of mirror, he said had no relevance to this trial.

"There's a red stain on it, it's not surprising it's Baylee Wylie's blood … it doesn't mean Marissa had anything to do with it."

When Lemieux finished, the table was empty. He said there is no physical evidence proving Shephard murdered Wylie.

Of the autopsy photos, he said there 57 in total. Lemieux said 42 are of the autopsy, adding "they are pretty inflammatory."

Considered victim a friend

Lemieux also said Shephard had no motive. Using the same words Shephard did during her testimony he said they were friends and had each other's back.

The defence also pointed out inconsistencies in Devin Morningstar's taped statements.

Morningstar knowingly gave two statements to police, while a third recording was made by an undercover officer planted in Morningstar's cell on the night of his arrest.

Lemieux, reading from transcripts, pointed out that Morningstar said he he didn't know where Noel and Shephard were, but later told the police he could help find them "in an hour."

At different points in his statements, Morningstar said he was not responsible, he was partly responsible, and also, "I basically killed the kid."

Lemieux finished by asking the jury, "Do you accept that a drug-addicted prostitute committed the perfect murder?"

He said it would be impossible to strip the scene of all physical evidence.

 "How circumstantial does a case have to get before it doesn't pass the smell test?"

The Crown's final word

Prosecutors turned to inconsistencies between Shephard's version of events and testimony from previous witnesses and experts called by the Crown.

Prosecutor Eric Lalonde reminded the court of Shephard's testimony, when she said Wylie had a gruesome, open wound on his chest. Then Lalonde asked the jury to recall the pathologist's testimony.

Lalonde said that when Dr. Ather Naseemuddin testified he said Wylie's chest wound was serious but not easy to detect simply by looking at the body. The pathologist detected the wound because the lung was collapsed, not because he could see a gash.

"He said it was small, because he himself could not see it," said Lalonde.

Annie St. Jacques said Shephard's behaviour after Wylie was killed does not fit with that of an innocent person. She recalled the testimony of the building's owner, who said at no point did Shephard contact him about the fire or the belongings left behind.

"What would a normal person do?" St. Jacques asked the jury.

Shephard hung around with Noel and Morningstar after Wylie had been killed, the Crown said, suggesting most people, "would not be found with (them) at the corner store being buddy buddy,"

St. Jacques finished her closing arguments by reminding the jury of something Shephard said during her testimony. After Wylie's death, Shephard said, she and Tyler Noel talked about Morningstar and Bailey Fillmore, another friend who had been at the Sumac house for part of the night.

"The most telling thing she said was, 'No, we are not killing anybody else Tyler,' when she was alone discussing killing Morningstar and Bailey Fillmore,'" St. Jacques said.

St. Jacques repeated: "'No, we are not killing anybody else."

The jury returns on Monday at 11 a.m. for their final instructions from Justice Zoël Dionne.