Police describe search for Nathan O’Brien on Day 3 of Garland murder trial

WARNING: GRAPHIC CONTENT

A Calgary police officer testified on the third day of the Douglas Garland murder trial that they searched for five-year-old Nathan O’Brien in his grandparents’ home the day of their disappearance, hoping he was still inside.

Garland is charged with the first-degree murders of O’Brien, as well as his grandparents Alvin and Kathy Liknes after they disappeared from their southwest home in late June 2014 and their bodies were never recovered.

Cst. Derek Alexon told the jury Wednesday that when he arrived at the home in the afternoon of June 30th, he was told there may be information that it was a robbery or a kidnapping and to look for O’Brien, who may be hiding inside.

“Did you find Nathan O’Brien?” Crown Prosecutor Shane Parker asked.

“No, we did not,” Alexon said.

The first officer to search the home that day was Cst. Trevor Matthes who went inside shortly after 10 a.m. for a check on welfare call.

Inside, he said he found “large pools of blood” in the bedrooms upstairs, as well as drag marks through blood on the floor and hand marks on the walls.

He also said he found a small tooth in a hallway and a bloody dumbbell in the garage, adding there were no signs of forced entry.

Alexon was responsible for taking photos of the scene, staying at the home from 5 p.m. that day until around 4 a.m. the next morning.

He would also spend three weeks at the Garland family property documenting evidence there.

Alexon said blood was found on almost every room he entered, documenting the footprints and fingerprints throughout the home.

In the master bedroom of the home, blood was found on the boxspring, but not the mattress and Alexon said the fitted sheet was never recovered.

Alexon also testified about returning to the Garland property nine months after the disappearance in March 2015 to gather more evidence, including six garbage cans of ash, which took him weeks to sift through.

He told the jury about the possibility of a tooth being in the ashes, which was sent off to a dentist to be analyzed, who will also take the stand in the trial.

He added no ransom or suicide note was found in the home.

PETTY GRUDGE

Earlier in the week during the Crown’s opening statement, co-prosecutor Vicki Faulkner told the jury the deaths were over a petty grudge Garland had with the Liknes over a pump they once worked on from 2006-2007.

She told the jury it was that grudge that pushed Garland to research torture and how to kill without emotion and that they would show DNA evidence on a saw and meat hooks on his family’s farm.

Court heard on Monday from Nathan’s mother, Jennifer, that the day before their disappearance, the family was together at the Liknes home after an estate sale and that Nathan wanted to spend the night with her parents.

O’Brien said she was planning on spending the night as well, but her youngest son Max was having trouble sleeping, so they decided to leave around 11 p.m. that night.

GARLAND TESTIMONY

On Tuesday, Garland’s father Archie, mother Doreen and sister Patti took the stand, his sibling being the former common-law wife of Alvin Liknes’ son Allen.

His father described the conversations he had with Douglas about how his son was still upset with the Liknes’ over being let go and unpaid for his work on the pump.

“I told him it was a bump in the road,” Archie Garland said.

Doreen Garland testified that her son was a bit of a loner, with not many friends but never a violent person.

“He’s my son, I love him and I’ve always loved him, but I think he’s an unhappy man,” she said.

She also described hearing the news about the Amber Alert for the Liknes’ and O’Brien in early July and brought up her shock to her son.

She told the jury he said as he often did when it came to that family, that he didn’t want to talk about it.

Sister Patti Garland described a conversation she had with her brother in Christmas 2013, where she said he told her he was going to call the police on the Liknes’ believing they had stolen from the Garland’s property, but she said she didn’t believe him and he should speak with them himself.

Patti travelled from her home in Evansburg to stay with the Garlands after news of the Amber Alert came out and when she saw that police were searching for a green truck, she went outside and got pictures of the Garland’s vehicle to be sent to police.

Her brother would be later arrested.

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