Preliminary inquiry set for Douglas Garland

Family members of a murdered little boy and his grandparents had to see the accused killer in person at the Calgary Courthouse Wednesday afternoon.

Douglas Garland, 54, said nothing during the brief appearance and his case was set over for a preliminary inquiry from May 19th to the 29th.

It will be held to determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial, presumably in front of a jury.

Garland faces two counts of first-degree murder and one count of second-degree murder in the deaths of five-year-old Nathan O’Brien, as well as Kathryn and Alvin Liknes in late June.

He was scheduled to appear in the morning, but didn’t until the afternoon and to the surprise of many, not by CCTV.

After walking in, he looked straight at the judge as the Crown and defense agreed on the May dates and then was led out after just around a minute.

The family members also quickly left following the short appearance.

Senior Crown counsel Shane Parker said although the eight-month pause seems like a long time, it’s actually very acceptable.

“It actually is a pretty good time frame for getting a two-week preliminary inquiry for someone who is in custody for these type of charges,” Parker said. “Again, we’re dealing with an investigation that normally would’ve taken six to the eight months and it was done in fairly rapid fashion.”

Parker added they’ll be ready to receive any new evidence that comes in.

“We always want the investigations to continue on an ongoing basis all the way through,” he said.

Defence lawyer Kim Ross echoed Parker’s comments on the time frame.

“For a case of this complexity, it’s actually a very short period of time,” Ross said, adding how far along he is in the process of reviewing the disclosure.

“We’ve been through a large bulk of it, but I understand there’s still a lot more that’s going to come, I understand that we won’t have full disclosure until probably sometime later in November, early December,” Ross said.

Ross was also asked why there had been no psychiatric evaluation requested for Garland, but he had no comment.

Police have still not located the bodies of the victims, who were last seen at an estate sale on June 29th.