ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Tara Bradbury
The Telegram
@tara_bradbury
Accused murderer Steve Bragg has been released from custody until he goes to trial next year.
Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice David Hurley delivered his decision on Bragg's bail application in St. John's this afternoon to lawyers who attended court by phone.
The bail review began a month ago and proceeded intermittently, with a number of witnesses called to testify. Evidence presented at the hearing is banned from publication until Bragg goes to trial before a jury in May 2021.
His interim release comes with a number of strict conditions, which have not yet been filed with the court.
Bragg was in prison for just over two years, since he was arrested and charged with the murder of 36-year-old Victoria Head, a Placentia native and mother of one.
Head's body was found near O'Brien's Farm Road in the centre of St. John's on Nov. 11, 2017.
Bragg, 37, was originally charged with second-degree murder, but the charge was upgraded to murder in the first degree two months later, after police unearthed new evidence in the case. Police say Head and Bragg knew each other.
Head's family has attended each of Bragg's court appearances, including the bail review, until Supreme Court was closed to the public two weeks ago due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bragg's six-week-long trial had been set to begin Jan. 20, but was postponed at the last minute at the request of the Crown, after prosecutors Lisa Stead and Paul Thistle informed the court they had been alerted to an issue with DNA cross-contamination at the province’s Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.
Even though the incident wasn't connected to Bragg's case, police launched an investigation that included all cases handled by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to January 2016, including Bragg’s.
Investigators subsequently found no issue with DNA contamination in Bragg’s case, and traced the problem to a packet of wooden swabs used in two unrelated autopsies: an Office of the Chief Medical Examiner staff member had taken a swab from a packet during the autopsy of a homicide victim, contaminating another clean swab at the same time. That second swab, still in the packet, was used six months later during a different autopsy.
The investigation didn’t take long and Bragg’s case was quickly called again in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court, but it was too late to proceed on the regular trial date and a new date had to be scheduled.
That proved difficult due to conflicting schedules between the court and the lawyers involved. While the court was prepared to hold the trial this spring, Bragg’s lawyers, Bob Buckingham and Robert Hoskins, were tied up with other matters that couldn't be rescheduled. Some of those cases, like all court cases in the province, have been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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