Const. Mitchell McLean testified that as he entered the house, he noticed what appeared to be bloody drag marks coming from the living room.
An RCMP officer testifying at the trial of a man accused of murdering a father and son in Crofton said that when he arrived at the Crofton Road home, the first thing he saw was a man on the second-floor balcony.
In a soft voice, the man told Const. Mitchell McLean: “He’s in the stairwell,” and then pointed to the front door.
It was Oct. 23, 2021, and McLean — who took the stand on Wednesday and Thursday at Justin James Dodd’s second-degree murder trial — said he and several other officers had arrived at the “dark and eerie” rural property at 12:48 a.m. and approached on foot.
From the balcony, Bruce Thompson spoke to the police officer quietly, but with a sense of urgency, which was possibly because he was trying to hide, McLean said.
Dodd has pleaded not guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Thomas Johnson, 57, and his son Bradley Johnson, 34.
Police had been called to the home by Leslie Lloy, the mother of Bradley Johnson and ex-partner of Thomas Johnson, who shared the house with Thompson.
In her 911 call, which was played for the jury on the first day of the trial, Lloy said Thompson had locked himself in a bathroom and then phoned to ask her to call for help.
McLean said he began to engage with Thompson to get more information and better assess if what he was saying was true.
Thompson told the police officer that Dodd “had taken his knife from his coffee table and was currently moving the bodies to the garage or carport,” McLean said.
As he was speaking with Thompson, McLean heard Const. Ian George call out: “I see blood.”
McLean said he believed George was looking in the window to the left of the front door. He “didn’t yell loud enough that the neighbours would hear,” but it was audible to the other officers in the vicinity, he said.
That marked the “first piece of tangible physical evidence that the report we were responding to could be true,” McLean said.
The officers prepared to enter the house, where Dodd, a childhood friend of the younger Johnson, had been staying at the home before the killings, according to the Crown’s opening argument.
As he entered the house, McLean said, he noticed what appeared to be bloody drag marks coming from the living room that crossed the front foyer.
The marks stopped at what he thought was “a pile of household garbage or junk” on a tipped-over wheelbarrow and a rolled-up rug.
In the pile, rolled in the rug, was what McLean later learned was one of two bodies in the house.
At that point, McLean said, he looked to the top of the stairs in the foyer and saw a pair of white skater-type shoes, then recognized Dodd as the person wearing them.
Dodd then said something along the lines of: “Hey guys, what are you doing here?” McLean recalled.
“In the moment it seemed like a casual statement,” the officer said.
During Dodd’s subsequent arrest, McLean said, he noticed both fresh and older cuts on the man’s hands as he handcuffed him, and blood on one shoe, though his clothes were clean. The Crown said in its opening submission Tuesday that Dodd took a shower and put his clothes in a garbage bag after the murders.
On Thursday, the jury was shown video recordings taken from police vehicle cameras while Dodd was inside.
Asked if he wants to speak to a lawyer, Dodd responds: “I’m good, man.”
Dodd is then heard making conversation with the officers in the car.
“How is your night going?” Dodd asks one of the officers. He then tells the officer they have “beautiful eyes.”
At one point, Dodd asks if he can get some food, and jokes that they should go to McDonald’s and “do the drive-through in a cop car.”
Later in the recording, Dodd says: “Would it make it easier if I just say I did it?”
When the officer responds that he could speak to a lawyer, Dodd says: “I could say I did it or I didn’t do it, doesn’t mean it happened.”
At the police station that night, as they removed his clothes and swabbed his hands for evidence, Dodd was “extremely co-operative,” said McLean.
The trial is being heard in New Westminster Law Court and is expected to last until the end of November.