After 35 years and a precedent-setting four first-degree murder trials, Robert Badgerow has been found guilty in the 1981 killing in Hamilton of nursing assistant Diane Werendowicz.
The jury delivered its verdict in a Kitchener, Ont., courtroom Thursday evening.
Badgerow is the first person in Canadian legal history to be tried for the same murder four times. He was initially arrested and charged with the murder in 1998.
The jury in his 2001 trial took eight days to deliberate before finding him guilty.
He was sentenced to life in prison. But that case was overturned on an appeal after Badgerow had spent almost 11 years in prison. Two other trials, in 2010 and 2011, ended in mistrials.
In 2014, the Ontario Court of Appeal ordered the fourth trial based on evidence about the originating location of a 911 call made on June 22, 1981, just days after Werendowicz’s body was found. The call was traced to a phone booth at Gate 6 of the steelmaker Dofasco, where Badgerow worked.
That evidence had been excluded at previous trials.
“I can’t even describe how I feel now,” Werendowicz’s nephew, Karl Werendowicz, said outside the courthouse after the guilty verdict.
“My dad is very happy,” Karl said.
He said he feels better now than he did after Badgerow was first convicted of the crime in 2001.
“I feel much happier already. Why? Because it’s all over,” he said, becoming emotional. “She’ll always be with us, but this time I won’t be as upset as I have been, so, we look forward to tomorrow.”
In 1981, Werendowicz, 23, had been out at a bar on with friends celebrating her upcoming birthday. But having worked a long shift that day, she left the bar around midnight and walked to her apartment, which was close by.
She never made it home. Her body was found the next day in a ravine by children playing in the area.
In 1998, DNA testing led to the arrest of Badgerow.
His semen was found on Werendowicz’s body and also on her jeans. Badgerow has maintained he and Werendowicz had consensual sex in the back seat of his car after she left the bar.
For Det. Steve Hrab, it was a relief after so many years to see the case come to a close.
“After 18 years, from the day we made the arrest, to finally have resolution is a good feeling,” he said outside the Kitchener courthouse.
“When we started this back in 1997, we identified 10 victims, Diane being one of them. And nine others. I hope they have some peace,” Hrab added.
“At the end of the day, common sense and the facts prevail, and that’s what I’m happy about.”
The jury deliberated four days, sifting through the testimony given by about 60 witnesses and more than 120 pieces of evidence, including a 911 call made at a phone booth at the Dofasco steel plant where Badgerow worked in the 1980s.
The jury never asked any questions of Justice Patrick Flynn during the deliberations.
Crown prosecutor Michael Fox said it’s hard to concentrate on anything else when a jury is out.
“You can’t do anything. All you can do is pace and wait. That’s what we’ve been doing down there,” he said.
He said Crown Cheryl Gzik, who dedicated her entire legal career to this case, was emotional about the verdict, as was he.
“I’m kind of overcome by the thought that 30 years ago, a young nurse who was in her early 20s was brutally raped and murdered and the man who committed this horrendous crime escaped justice for 20 years,” he said.
“I’m so thankful to this Kitchener jury for seeing through his lies and seeing through the defence that was mounted and finally declaring for everyone to know that this man is a dangerous, sexual predator and he should not be free.”
After the verdict was read, Badgerow maintained his innocence.
A guilty verdict of first-degree murder brings with it an automatic life sentence with no possibility of parole for 25 years. Badgerow has already spent 11 years in prison after being sentenced in a previous trial. That time served will be calculated against his parole eligibility.
By Joe Pavia, Kate Bueckert – Source: CBC.CA
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