Editor's note: The following story contains graphic descriptions heard in court which may not be suitable for some readers.
A provincial police detective continued to be questioned at the Barrie courthouse on Tuesday about evidence collected at a Dunlop Street apartment almost 30 years ago.
The murder trial entered its third day today, with the Crown focusing on blood stains and valuables left behind in the young mother's home.
Katherine Janeiro, 20, was found stabbed to death in her Dunlop Street West apartment in October 1994.
Robert MacQueen, who is now 61 years old and also is known as "Bruce Ellis," is on trial for second-degree murder in her death. None of the allegations against him have been proven in court.
In 1994, OPP Det.-Const. Brad Deakos was tasked with processing the crime scene, which included searching for, collecting and documenting physical evidence. Barrie police used the OPP’s services as it did not have the required resources at the time.
Deakos, who began testifying late Monday afternoon, was questioned all day Tuesday by assistant Crown attorney Mike Flosman, as photographs the officer took at the crime scene were displayed on TV screens in the courtroom.
Flosman asked Deakos about the finer details involved with collecting and documenting blood samples, which had been found on walls and a door jamb at Janeiro’s bedroom and inside the adjacent bathroom.
Earlier in the trial, the Crown claimed MacQueen’s blood was found at two locations inside Janeiro’s apartment at the time of her death.
MacQueen sat at a table behind his defence team, intently watching as the evidence was presented to the court. He sat stone-faced, showing little emotion, while sometimes fiddling with a pen.
The jury again saw graphic photos of Janeiro’s body on the bedroom floor, with a blood-stained bed beside her, as the Crown quizzed Deakos about which stains were sampled and sent to a forensics lab in Toronto.
The Crown’s questioning also focused on a telephone outlet on a wall, which still had the phone-line jack connected to it, but the phone and cord were missing from the apartment.
As previously reported several years ago, police said Janeiro's telephone had been stolen from the crime scene.
On Tuesday, court also heard that Janeiro’s wallet, with $1,250 in cash inside, was found on the living room floor resting against a wall.
In other crime-scene photos, rings were also evident on Janeiro’s left hand as her body lay on the bedroom floor.
At the time of the homicide, police had suggested her death may have been the result of a robbery.
The trial is scheduled to resume Wednesday and is expected to last seven weeks.
Janeiro was found dead on Oct. 10, 1994. At the time, police said she had suffered multiple stab wounds. Her two-year-old daughter had been visiting family members at the time of the homicide.
Court heard the last time Janeiro had contact with anyone was around 4 a.m. on Oct. 10, 1994. Her body was discovered by a friend around 7 p.m. later that night.
Court previously heard from the Crown that MacQueen had been in a relationship with Janeiro while he was married and living nearby on Dunlop Street.
During opening statements, the Crown said Janeiro had also had a "therapeutic abortion" on Sept. 16, 1994, less than a month before she was killed.
The Crown also described Janeiro as someone who “sold drugs for a friend.”
In 2019, a woman contacted police to report she had seen a man running across Dunlop Street with a phone. She later identified MacQueen from a photograph.
MacQueen was initially charged with first-degree murder in January 2021, more than 26 years after Janeiro's body was discovered in her apartment, near Anne Street. The charge was reduced to second-degree murder following a preliminary hearing in December 2022 and MacQueen was granted bail in July 2023.
According to news reports published by the former Barrie Examiner, Janeiro's body was found lying on the floor, covered in blood with scratches on her face. She'd been at a pair of downtown bars most of Sunday night and early Monday morning prior to her body being discovered.
In March 1995, only a week after police announced they were looking for the missing phone, it was found in a creek not far from the homicide scene. Its memory was intact, but police said it brought investigators no closer to finding her killer.
Janeiro left home at age 16 and moved to Barrie. A year later, she gave birth to a baby girl. About 10 months prior to her death, Janeiro had moved into the Dunlop Street apartment with her toddler.
