The jury members of the Ryan Lane murder trial have been excused until Friday.
The defence lawyers for the three co-accused made motions on April 6 to Justice Alan Macleod. The motions are protected by a publication ban.
Lane, originally from Cochrane, went missing in early February 2012 while he was going through an alleged custody dispute with his child’s mother,
Cuthill, her husband Tim Rempel and his brother Wilhelm Rempel are the three co-accused in the murder trial. Each is charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in connection with Lane’s death.
Last week, the jury was shown photos of burned human bones that were found in a burn barrel in a remote rural area near Beiseker. The remains were too damaged to be identified, but the investigating officers confirmed that Lane’s class ring and pieces of a cell phone were also found in the barrel.
On April 1, the judge and jury heard a wiretap after Wilhelm was interrogated for three hours. Wilhelm was brought in for questioning on July 17, 2012 and called several people after the interrogation, including his brother Tim and his mother.
The Rempel brothers originally told Calgary Police Services (CPS) that neither of them had met Lane and gave conflicting statements about the night of Lane’s disappearance. Tim told CPS that he and Wilhelm went out for coffee in Airdrie on the night of Lane’s disappearance – while Wilhelm told CPS that he was out for coffee with his estranged wife in the evening.
Lane went missing after receiving an anonymous phone call from a payphone from a person promising Lane a way for him to gain more access to his daughter.
As previously testified by Lane’s father, Bruce Lane, the former Cochranite drove to meet with the man. Bruce observed Lane getting into a red pickup truck in a northwest Calgary parking lot on Feb. 6, 2012 – the last time anyone had reported seeing Lane.
The jury heard differently on April 1, when the prosecution played a recorded conversation between Wilhelm and his mother when he admitted that Tim called Lane the night he disappeared but Wilhelm remained adamant that his brother “didn’t kill the boy.”
Earlier in the trial, the Crown had shown Lane’s DNA was found in the Rempel brothers’ vehicles, including the red pick-up from the night of Lane’s disappearance, which was later sold to a scrap yard in Calgary.
Cuthill and the Rempel brothers were arrested and charged in November 2012.
It is unknown if the defence will call any witnesses.
