A one-litre carton of apple juice is arguably a strange object for a burglar to bring along on a break-in.
Perhaps stranger again is the thief leaving it there, complete with his DNA.
Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court Justice Vikas Khaladkar acknowledged the evidence against Bobby Newell was circumstantial only, but found him guilty of a break-in and theft at a St. John’s church.
“Unfortunately for Mr. Newell, the circumstantial evidence in this case is so overwhelming that I cannot entertain any reasonable doubt about his complicity in this break and enter,” Khaladkar said Tuesday afternoon.
That evidence included video surveillance of a man carrying a dufflebag and an open juice carton jimmying open the doors of St. Pius X Church and leaving after 40 minutes with the bag and what appeared to be a crowbar — but no juice box.
The evidence also included testimony from forensic experts who processed and examined the juice box and found it to contain Newell’s DNA on the spout. No other DNA samples were found.
The evidence also included testimony from Father Wayne Bolton, who said he entered the church shortly before 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 18, 2016, to help prepare for mass. He noticed a dufflebag on the floor that shouldn’t have been there, as well as a juice carton, which he picked up and brought with him as he continued into the sacristy.
As he got to the sacristy door, Bolton said, he heard a noise and a man came out. Bolton asked him what he was doing there, and the man said he had been using the washroom, then picked up the dufflebag and left.
Bolton said there was damage to some of the church doors, door frames and drawers, and the pix — a box used to carry the Eucharist to parishioners who are sick or otherwise unable to come to church to take Communion — was missing.
The court also heard from William Mallan, a longtime church volunteer who was responsible for co-ordinating the Eucharist ministry as well as overseeing the tidying of the church. He testified the church had been cleaned the day before the break-in and there was nothing on the floor when everyone left that evening.
Newell represented himself at trial, though he didn’t call any witnesses. He presented alternate scenarios to the judge, including that the DNA sample on the juice container had been contaminated because Bolton had picked it up and taken it into another room without wearing gloves, and that the container may not have been the same one seen in the thief’s hand on the video. Khaladkar rejected those ideas.
“To suggest that Mr. Newell’s DNA was transferred onto the apple juice container’s mouthpiece by some other person is not reasonable,” the judge ruled. “To suggest that the thief transported an empty carton of apple juice into the church with Mr. Newell’s DNA on it and left it in there with the result that Mr. Newell would be wrongfully charged and convicted is illogical.”
Khaladkar found Newell guilty of the break-in, saying “no other interpretation is reasonable, in my opinion.”
The judge will sentence Newell later this month.
In the meantime, Newell will be back in court Thursday, where he and the Crown will present their closing submissions in relation to another case in which Newell is charged: an unrelated break-in at Trico Ltd., a siding contractor, on Austin Street in St. John’s. Newell pleaded not guilty to that incident as well, and is representing himself.
Newell was arrested in the fall of 2016 and charged with more than 100 offences, including assaults, thefts and dozens of court breaches. He made a plea bargain for many of the charges, and others were withdrawn as a result.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
