'I shot her,' Strathmore man tells sister before divulging plan to die in suicide-by-cop scenario
Glenn Randall was agitated and driving 130 km/h in a southern Alberta snowstorm when he called his sister in New Brunswick to tell her he'd shot his ex-girlfriend in the head and planned to commit suicide by getting into a shootout with police.
That's the story Randall's two sisters told as they testified at his first-degree murder trial, which got underway in Calgary on Monday.
"I shot her three times and twice in the head," Wendy Baxter said her brother relayed in the early morning hours of Jan. 6, 2015.
Wendy said she begged her brother to turn himself in to police instead. When she asked Randall if he was drunk, he responded: "f--k, yeah."
Strathmore RCMP officers who arrived at Brenda Walker's home within minutes of gunshots being reported found the 49-year-old face down on her kitchen floor. She was dead from two gunshot wounds to her head and four to her torso.
Randall seemed 'perfectly friendly'
Randall and Walker had broken up in late December 2014. On January 2, 2015, Randall watched her leave a Strathmore bar with another man, prosecutor Lori Chambers told jurors in her opening statement on Monday.
Trinity Rossignol, the Crown's first witness, testified that he met Walker at the King Eddy Pub in Strathmore on New Years Day 2015.
On Jan. 2, 2015, Rossignol was at the same pub and played two games of pool with Randall before Walker showed up.
Rossignol and Walker then played a game of pool before leaving the bar together.
Under cross-examination, Rossignol confirmed to defence lawyer Michael Bates that he and Walker were not in a romantic relationship and had not been affectionate toward each other in the King Eddy.
He agreed with Bates that Randall seemed like a "perfectly friendly person."
On Jan. 5, Walker began receiving texts from Randall. Hours later, she called 911, telling the operator a man with a gun was at her door, Chambers told jurors.
Randall fled down alley
Walker's neighbour Graydon Pease testified he heard the four or five gunshots and ran to his window in time to see Randall flee down an alley.
When RCMP arrived at Walker's home, they found her dead in the kitchen.
Soon afterward, police received a call from Loraine Schriver, who said her brother had phoned to say goodbye because he had killed Walker and planned to die by getting into a shootout with police.
Although Schriver and Baxter both testified Randall had confessed to them, they described their brother as a loving man who had never exhibited any signs of violence.
"[Randall is] the very last person in the entire world that would say those words to me," said Schriver.
Both sisters cried during parts of their testimony. So did their brother as he sat in the prisoner's box.
The 'kill zones'
Under cross-examination, Baxter agreed with defence lawyer Jennifer Ruttan that Randall wasn't making sense that night.
Randall had told his sister "I didn't shoot her in any of the kill zones" but had also said he had shot Walker in the head twice.
He also said his father — who was alive — was dead.
Randall called three women that night, according to prosecutors Chambers and Jim Sawa. His two sisters have already testified, and an ex-girlfriend is scheduled to give evidence later in the trial.
Randall's sisters and police were able to convince him to surrender. After his arrest, investigators searched his truck and found four loaded firearms.
Justice Earl Wilson is presiding over the three-week trial.
