Brother of accused in officer’s death saw suspects that day

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The brother of a man accused of fatally shooting a provincial police officer more than two years ago testified Monday that he found the two accused killers inside a trailer on his property on the afternoon of the alleged murder.

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Richard McKenzie told the jury trial in Cayuga, Ont., that his trailer was locked when he arrived home that day and after getting inside, he found his younger brother, Randall McKenzie, there with Brandi Stewart-Sperry.

Randall and Stewart-Sperry were each charged with first-degree murder in the death of OPP Const. Grzegorz Pierzchala, and both have pleaded not guilty.

The 28-year-old officer was shot on Dec. 27, 2022, while responding to a vehicle in a ditch west of Hagersville, Ont., near Brantford.

Richard told the court Monday that he found his brother pacing back and forth inside the trailer, while Stewart-Sperry kept apologizing. His brother then asked to use his tools to change a tire, he testified.

“I told him I don’t want nothing to do with what you’re doing, but you can use my tools,” he said.

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Richard testified that he received a text message from his neighbour that afternoon saying there were police in the area, and he told his brother to “get the (expletive) out of here.

“And then he took off and I told him that I loved him and that was it,” he told the court.

The accused man’s brother said he learned an incident had happened nearby the following day on social media.

His wife, Katelyn Garlow, also took the stand on Monday and testified that she had also gone to the trailer that afternoon and found Randall and a woman inside.

“Randall was walking back and forth, frantic, pale, like something happened,” she said, adding that she noticed the woman was crying.

Garlow testified that she went to a nearby store that day and heard about “an accident involving a shooting.” She then headed home, she said, and went into the trailer again where she found the woman inside by herself.

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“I told her she was not allowed to be in there and that she needed to get out,” Garlow told the court, noting that she’d only met the woman one other time the week before, and she was introduced to her as Randall’s girlfriend.

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Garlow testified that the last time she saw her brother-in-law and the woman was when they left the trailer, going away from the road and toward trees and fields.

The Crown has said it is looking to prove that Randall was the shooter and Stewart-Sperry intentionally helped him.

An agreed statement of facts read in court last week said Ontario’s chief forensic pathologist found Pierzchala had been shot six times.

The court has heard from multiple witnesses so far, including some who had stopped at the side of the road after spotting the car in the ditch and law enforcement officials involved in the investigation.

Witness testimony is expected to continue later this week.

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