A ruling is expected late next week in the murder trial of Gary Johnston, accused of the 1998 murder of Victor Fraser in Surrey.
Johnston, 52, was charged with second-degree murder in 2009 and pleaded not guilty to Fraser’s death last month.
During the four-week trial in New Westminster Supreme Court, Crown prosecutors said that Fraser’s death was the result of a botched robbery. They alleged the 42-year-old trucker walked into his sister Jeanie’s Bridgeview-area home and interrupted Johnston, who was piling things up to steal from the house.
The two men had met before and greeted one another initially, the Crown said, before Johnston took a pair of knives from the kitchen and stabbed Fraser several times in the neck, the blades breaking off the handles in the process.
During the trial, the Crown called as witnesses three people they alleged Johnston confessed his crime to: his brother, an undercover police officer posing as a crime boss and a man Johnston met in Saskatechewan.
Both the Crown and defence closed their cases Monday, the defence choosing to call no evidence.
Judge Robert Crawford is expected to deliver his decision April 15.
