Defence questions credibility of sole eyewitness in Fort Resolution murder trial

The court heard from the one eyewitness in the second degree murder trial of a Fort Resolution man Tuesday — but the defence questioned his credibility.

Jason Larocque, 39, told the court he passed out on a couch in his father James Larocque's home outside Fort Resolution after two straight days of drinking. He was with his friend Cameron Sayine, and his cousin Chad Beck.

Larocque told the court Sayine shook him awake sometime in the evening.

The two men started to argue. At some point, Larocque said Sayine mentioned beating Beck up.

Beck was slumped in a couch nearby, a small line of blood running down his face.

'He came around the corner in a second'

At some point, Beck gets up and goes outside. Two minutes later, Larocque told the court, Beck came around the corner of the living room and swung a metal axe into the back of Sayine's head, then his back.

"He came around the corner in a second, it was fast," Larocque said.

Sayine fell to the ground, unresponsive.

Larocque said he jumped up, grabbed Beck and "gave him shit."

"I gave him a slap and asked him what the hell he's doing, killing someone," Larocque said.

That's when Larocque remembers Beck saying Sayine is "not going to mess with our family anymore."

Throughout his testimony, Larocque repeatedly told the court how intoxicated he was during the events of July 1, 2018, and while giving police his statement the next day.

The defence asked Larocque several times to confirm whether his statement to police was truthful and representative of what he saw and heard.

"There could be truthful things in there," Larocque said. "I barely remember that statement."

'He was in a trance'

James Larocque was driving up and down the highway with his wife Verda Beck, while his son and his friends were partying at his place.

Suddenly, Verda's phone rang. It was Jason.

"[Jason] says, 'Dad come home, Chad [Beck] chopped Cameron [Sayine] with an axe — and he's dead," Larocque told the court Tuesday.

James Larocque turned the steering wheel around to return to his place. He told the court that Verda connected with the local RCMP detachment on the drive back.

Eight minutes later, they pulled into their driveway.

They watched as Beck walked down the cabin's front steps, his pants covered in blood.

"He was in a trance," Larocque said.

Larocque grabs both of Beck's arms and sits him down on the swing outside his home. He then leaves the property to go find a local RCMP officer.

After a few tours through downtown Fort Resolution, James Larocque finally found an RCMP officer parked near the hamlet's arena. He told the officer that there'd been a murder at his home.

Larocque told the court he watched RCMP place Beck under arrest. He also saw one of the officers running down the hill at the back of the property, shouting into his radio.

He tells the court that he knew, just based on the officer's body language, that they had found Sayine's body.

At least two previous fights between victim and accused

Jason Larocque told the court he thought Beck and Sayine were "friends." He said he never saw any violent fights between the two men. Larocque's police statement, on the other hand, said Sayine threatened Beck "all the time."

The court agreed Tuesday on a statement of facts that included eight calls to local RCMP about Sayine's behaviour a few weeks before the incident.

One of the calls on June 8, 2018 details a fight between Beck and Sayine. Both men were intoxicated at the time. No charges were laid in the fight.

Three days later, Sayine forced his way into Beck's home with Frank Pierrot, who punched Beck in the nose forcefully enough for it to bleed. Pierrot was charged with assault in that incident, but Sayine was not.

Sayine was charged with assault in the same time frame for an unrelated incident with one of his relatives. The charge was stayed after his death.

The court will hear from more community witnesses today.