Crown counsel are applying to allow two undercover police officers to testify using pseudonyms and without being seen by the public and one man accused in the 2015 murder of Nicholas Brophy in Thompson.
The application by Manitoba prosecutors Brian Wilford and Erin Dunsmore is being heard Oct. 22 in the Court of Queen’s Bench in Winnipeg, in advance of the November trial of Zach Linklater of Thompson and Mark Thomas of South Indian Lake, who were arrested and charged with murder in April 2016, a few days after the body of Brophy, was found just outside Thompson city limits. He had last been seen alive the previous September.
A third man charged, Justin Baker, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in December 2017 in Thompson and was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 10 years by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Chris Martin.
The Crown application seeks to allow the undercover officers, to whom Thomas made statements during the investigation of Brophy’s death, to testify using pseudonyms, as they did at a voir dire (a trial within a trial to rule on the admissibility of evidence) in Thompson Sept. 10-14. The voir dire was to determine the admissibility of certain statements by Thomas to the undercover officers, and the court ruled that portions of those statements may be submitted at trial. The application also seeks to allow them to testify from behind a screen or with the courtroom closed to the public, who would be allowed to listen to an audio stream only of the officers’ testimony from a different location. If the officers testified from behind a screen to conceal their identities from the public and from Linklater, the application seeks to have the courtroom closed when the officers exit and enter. If successful, the application would order a ban on publication of any information that could identify the witnesses, to prevent their identities bring discovered, which could put them in harm’s way due to past, present or future operations that they may be involved in.
The officers would still be visible to the jury, however.
During the sentencing of Baker, who was 19 and living in Thompson at the time Brophy was killed, court heard that he had discussed the death with several people, one of whom came forward to police.
This led to a ground search by RCMP in the area described by Baker, resulting in the discovery of a skull, which dental analysis confirmed was Brophy’s. Baker told police in statements that he, Thomas and Linklater had run into Brophy and robbed him, then taken him to an isolated area where they assaulted him, culminating in a series of kicks and stomps to various parts of his body. They then covered up the body with branches and Baker was told to leave one of his socks with the body. This fact, not released by police, helped confirm his involvement in Brophy’s murder. Baker began cooperating with the police and the Crown in March of 2016 and testified in a preliminary hearing for Linklater and Thomas in the summer of 2017.
Linklater and Thomas’s trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 5 in Winnipeg.
