James Pendergast has an alternate explanation for the break-in, arson and animal cruelty he is charged with.
Taking the stand at his own trial Monday, he offered to the court his account of what happened the night his ex-girlfriend's Bell Island home was broken into and set on fire with her dog inside last February.
Pendergast, 46, explained he had cooked supper for his daughter and watched movies at home with his girlfriend that night, before receiving a call around 1:30 a.m. from a friend. The friend was at the same pub where his daughter had gone, Pendergast said, and called to tell him that she and her date were arguing.
Pendergast said he walked over to the pub and waited for her outside, then called her a cab to get her home. He waited until it arrived, he said, adding it had taken a while to get there, maybe three hours.
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After that, he decided to go visit his ex-girlfriend. She lived near the pub and they had a close friendship, to the point where it wouldn't be unusual for him to drop in unannounced at 4 a.m., he said.
Pendergast said that when he got there, he noticed the window in the only door to her home had been broken and there were no lights on outside or inside. Worried about her, he said, he approached the door and called out her name, asking if she was OK. When he got no response, he figured she wasn't home and he started to walk away, he said.
Pendergast said he turned back when he heard a crash from inside the house. He reached inside the broken glass and opened the door to let himself in, then walked around the home, calling her name and looking for her. He looked everywhere except the bedroom, he explained, stopping to pick up her little dog, who came out from behind the sofa, seeming scared.
Pendergast said he noticed a box in a storage room off the living room had been opened, with clothes and other items strewn about, and he wondered if someone had broken into the home, as had happened in the past.
When he couldn't find the woman, Pendergast said he left the home, reaching inside the broken glass to lock the door again after he closed it.
When asked by Crown prosecutor Paul Thistle to explain why witnesses saw smoke coming from the house only about a minute after watching him walk away, Pendergast suggested someone else had broken into the home and had hidden in the bedroom when he came looking for the woman, then set fire to the place after he left.
"While (neighbours) were watching me walk down the driveway, I guarantee there was someone else walking out the backyard," Pendergast replied. "There had to be."
When Pendergast's trial began two weeks ago, a married couple living next door to the woman testified individually about what they had seen the night her rented home went up in flames with her dog inside.
Scott and Tammie Taplin said they were woken up in the middle of the night Feb. 10 by the sound of breaking glass outside. Tammie said she looked out her kitchen window and saw Pendergast — whom she said she and her husband know well — on the front step of the house next door, reaching in through the door's broken window and letting himself in. She said she saw him moving around the house and turning on the light before turning it off again and leaving, closing and locking the door behind him.
The Taplins said they then saw smoke coming from the home and called 911.
On Monday, a fire investigator testified he was unable to pinpoint the exact cause of the fire, but he determined — by eliminating other possible causes, like an electrical malfunction or an accident — it was intentionally set. An investigation revealed the fire had been set in a box of clothing, books and ceramics in the centre of the storage room.
Pendergast outright rejected the notion that he is to blame.
"No sir, I most certainly did not set the fire," he said, adding he was once a volunteer firefighter and had a family member in the fire department. "There's no way I would start a fire because I know the grief it would cause and I'm a dog owner myself. There's no way I would hurt a dog."
On cross-examination, Thistle asked Pendergast why the neighbours didn't see or hear him calling the woman's name.
"I didn't hear (Scott Taplin) running around his house looking out windows, either," Pendergast replied.
Thistle pointed out Pendergast hadn't called the police about the break-in at the woman's home, and he had sent her nine unanswered texts in the 10 hours or so after the fire. The first one, sent just after 5 a.m., didn't ask the woman how she was or tell her he had been at her home and seen a broken window, Thistle said. The text read, "Out with another man, are you?"
"His motivation wasn't concern, his motivation was jealousy," Thistle later told the court. "It was an attempt to control (the woman's) behaviour long after the relationship had ended.
"I'm going to suggest that Mr. Pendergast's version of events is implausible and unbelievable. It's completely unbelievable that a person would walk up to a completely dark house at 4 a.m. without calling first or without an invitation, open the door and go in for a visit. … What is being presented is that a mysterious third person broke in immediately prior, hiding in the bedroom with the door closed, and as soon as Mr. Pendergast left, set fire in the storage room and escaped without anyone seeing. It's utterly implausible."
Pendergast's lawyer, Jason Edwards, pointed out his client had a strong motivation not to call the police, given he was serving a period of house arrest and was supposed to be in his residence at the time of the incident. He was serving a sentence given after he assaulted the woman two months earlier.
Edwards stressed the fire investigator's inability to pinpoint the cause of the fire and pointed to the woman's testimony a couple of weeks ago, in which she said she and Pendergast had been on good terms earlier in the day.
"Where there is only circumstantial evidence, there are other possible reasonable explanations," Edwards said. "It's possible that he may have done it. It's probable, even. But that's not the test we have to meet. The test is whether there's proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
Judge Jacqueline Brazil will deliver her verdict Aug. 27.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
