ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — Police officers looking for the man who had stabbed Jonathan Collins arrested Craig Pope in a medical office after he had asked to make an appointment with a plastic surgeon, the court heard Wednesday.
Roxanne Kennedy, who was working in the reception area of a shared medical office off Elizabeth Avenue, was one of a number of witnesses who took the stand at Pope's murder trial Wednesday.
Between 3:30 and 4 p.m. on Sept. 7, 2017, a man entered the office, Kennedy told the court. At first, she thought he was just looking to use the washroom, as people often did.
"He seemed a bit confused, so I asked if I could help him," Kennedy said. "He mentioned (the doctor's) name, and said his wife or girlfriend was a patient and he wanted to make an appointment."
It was at that moment, Kennedy testified, that she noticed blood on the man's face, near his lip.
"I told him that office was closed and he said thank you and he was leaving, and that's when the RNC came to the door and asked him to step out," Kennedy told the court. The man had been polite and seemed like "a normal guy," she said.
Two RNC officers testified they had been tasked with trying to locate the man suspected of stabbing Collins during an altercation on the street in the Alderberry Lane/Mundy Pond Road area, in the centre-west region of St. John's, within the preceding hour. Witnesses described the man as heavyset with dark hair, wearing no shirt and having multiple tattoos. The suspect had reportedly left the area in a taxi after Collins collapsed on the street.
Const. Kyle Smith told the court he had received information that the taxi had dropped the suspect off in the area of "The Courts," an area of government housing on Elizabeth Avenue, near Anderson Avenue.
Smith said he went to that area and drove around, waiting for something to catch his eye, and at one point saw two men walking. When he lost sight of them, another police officer radioed to say he had the men in view.
Smith said he watched the men walk down a path toward a plaza.
"They looked in my direction and at that point they split, which was suspicious to me," Smith said.
He said one of the men matched the description of the suspect, but was wearing a yellow plaid button-up shirt and jeans. That man went into the medical clinic, Smith testified, while the other kept walking.
Smith said he briefly questioned the second man and told him he was free to go, while Const. Kevin Hogan went to the clinic and apprehended the suspect. That man was found to be carrying a lighter and a capped intraveneous needle, Smith said.
Hogan told the court the man identified himself as Craig Pope and was co-operative with police, indicating he wanted to speak to a lawyer.
"I advised him he was being detained as a suspect of assault. I also advised him, based on information I had received, that if the person died, that investigation would change to murder," Hogan testified.
It did, since Collins was pronounced dead upon arriving by ambulance at the Health Sciences Centre, having suffered a stab wound to the abdomen.
With the help of Rovers Ground Search and Rescue volunteers, police searched the area around Alderberry Lane as well as that of "the courts," looking for a knife or other sharp object. They asked Canada Post to unlock a community mailbox on Alderberry Lane so they could search inside, and they asked the city to remove three manhole covers and pump out the water in the drain below, so cameras could be lowered into them. They combed the ground, looking under shrubbery and vehicles. They found nothing.
On Tuesday, the court heard testimony from RNC Const. Trevor Kennedy, the first police officer to arrive at the scene of the stabbing. He described having worked with a passerby, a nurse, to perform CPR on Collins until paramedics arrived. Kennedy said he had accompanied Collins — who was unconscious most of that time — in the ambulance. The officer became emotional, pausing and turning his head away from the jury as he explained Collins had opened his eyes, looked at him and slightly smiled before giving him the peace sign. He showed no signs of life after that, the constable said.
The nurse who happened to have been driving by as Collins lay on the street took the stand Wednesday, saying she had noticed there were no paramedics at that point and had gotten out of her vehicle to see if she could help.
"One of the officers said it looked like the man had been stabbed, and he showed me a wound in his abdomen," said Tara O'Keefe. "It wasn't bleeding profusely. (Collins) wasn't losing a lot of blood, so we went to (check) his breathing."
Collins' breath was quick and shallow, O'Keefe said, and he didn't have what she called an effective pulse. She said she noticed blood in his mouth and on his lips, but no sign of what may have caused it.
Collins, 36, was a father of two.
Pope's trial is expected to continue in Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court in St. John's Thursday morning with testimony from another RNC officer.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
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