KELOWNA — Two sisters who were visiting Kelowna in August 2011 testified Tuesday about getting a glimpse of the driver of an SUV that sped away from the scene of Jonathan Bacon’s murder.
Ingrid Merkus told Justice Allan Betton that she was just about to step onto a patio of a café about two blocks from the Delta Grand when she heard loud bangs.
“I looked toward the sounds — so, toward the hotel — and saw activity, people running,” Merkus testified.
Jujhar Khun-Khun, Jason McBride and Michael Jones are charged with the first-degree murder of Bacon and the attempted murder of four others with him that day.
Merkus said she held her hands out to block her sister from going outside.
She said,“Step back. There are gunshots.”
“I witnessed a vehicle racing up the street and I just stayed put until the vehicle had passed,” Merkus said.
“It was an SUV, light-coloured. It was dented on the driver’s side as if he had been recently scraped.”
She said the driver had “short, close-cropped hair, well-manicured, close shaven. I observed an olive complexion. The hair was black.”
“I observed a light-coloured shirt, long-sleeved, maybe pushed up,” she testified.
The driver was trying to shield his face with his arm.
His build was “not slight, but not heavy. I would say muscular.”
At one point after the murder, Merkus told police the driver may have been partly South Asian, Italian or Greek.
Merkus said both the driver’s window and front passenger’s window were rolled down.
She never saw the face of the passenger, she testified.
“The person was leaning out of the window on his own side, so I did not see anything about that person,” Merkus said.
Her sister, Christina Conquergood, had a different recollection.
She testified that the driver’s window was up, but that the passenger’s window was down.
She did get a look at the driver when he passed right in front of her, Conquergood testified.
“To me, he looked like he — I would say Caucasian — but more of an olive-type of tone … Italian or Croatian,” she said, adding that the driver was a “strong-looking man. He just looked well-put-together.”
She was later shown a photo line-up by police, but was unable to pick anyone out.
Also Tuesday, defence lawyers for the accused asked Betton to impose a ban on the media using any new images or photos of the accused for their “security.”
The request was prompted by a sketch artist being in court to do drawings for a media outlet.
Betton said proper notice had not been given to the media, so he declined to impose either a permanent or an interim ban.
The trial continues.
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