Crown reveals “Mr. Big” operation responsible for catching alleged killer
It has been more than six years since the murdered body of 50-year-old Gwenda Gregory was found in her Usherville home on a cold March afternoon.
For three years it looked like the case had gone cold until the RCMP arrested Jaycee Mildenberger, Gregory’s neighbour, on June 8, 2012. At that time, police said only that a thorough and lengthy investigation had led to a break in the case.
What was not revealed until Crown attorney Andy Wyatt made his opening statement Monday at Court of Queens’ Bench in Yorkton was that the big break was an alleged confession garnered through a Mr. Big sting.
Using graphic language and a dramatic delivery, Wyatt painted a grisly picture of the night of March 6, 2009 for 14 jurors and the court. He told of how Gregory and Mildenberger were having a drink together in her kitchen when the phone rang. Mildenberger, Wyatt said, stopped her from answering it by punching her in the chest.
As Gregory was reeling from the blow sputtering, ‘I thought you were my friend,’ Mildenberger grabbed her from behind, threw her to the ground and dragged her into the living room where he sexually assaulted her with his fingers, the prosecutor continued.
The accused then dragged her by the hair to the bathroom where he ripped off the rest of her clothes, dumped her in the tub and slashed her wrists to make it look like she committed suicide and waited to watch her die. She wasn’t dying, though, she was begging for mercy so he went to the kitchen, Wyatt said, and came back with a bigger, sharper knife. He slashed her neck and sat on the toilet for up to 30 minutes waiting for his victim to die, but she wouldn’t.
He slashed her neck again, so violently Wyatt said, that it opened her up from shoulder to shoulder and he left her there gurgling with a sliced windpipe while he cleaned up blood with the victim’s own towels and collected whatever evidence he could.
“You may be wondering how we know this,” Wyatt said addressing the jury. “He told us.”
The Crown then went on to describe the sting operation. Police had suspicions about Mildenberger and set out to create a fictional reality for the suspect.
In a seemingly random incident, Mildenberger helped someone out with a car breakdown.
That led to a series of introductions and soon the suspect was working for a man this newspaper will refer to as Mr. X in respect of a publication ban that could compromise the identity of undercover police officers.
Over the course of their relationship, Mr. X would slowly reveal to Mildenberger that the business they were engaged in together, shipping parcels around the region, wasn’t exactly on the up and up.
Then Mr. X would further build the trust by confessing to his own notorious past. He claimed he was no longer part of that life, but still had family connections to organized crime.
On May 27, 2012, another seemingly random incident arose in which a uniformed officer who had apparently had too much to drink, and whom Mildenberger was acquainted with, accosted the suspect while he was with Mr. X at a restaurant. He told Mildenberger investigators had not forgotten about him and charges would be laid soon.
Mr. X told Mildenberger he could hook him up with Mr. Big (another undercover officer) who could make the evidence against him disappear. On June 5, 2012, they all met in a warehouse in Winnipeg where police recorded a first alleged confession with a hidden camera.
Mr. Big wanted more evidence, though, and convinced Mildenberger to take him to the scene of the crime and then the place where he had burned the evidence and dumped the murder weapon. The officers dropped GPS beacons so a forensics team could find their way to the evidence.
They found parts of a utility knife and a kitchen knife right where Mildenberger allegedly had burned the evidence and dumped the knife.
“It’s a simple case,” Wyatt summed up. “Gwen Gregory was murdered and the man who did it will tell you all how he did it.”
Following the morning break there was an unexpected development in the trial when the Crown revealed one of the jurors had a prior business connection with one of the victim’s daughters.
The defence, led by Brian Pfefferle of Saskatoon, moved that the juror be dismissed. The Crown agreed she should be. Pfefferle, though, wanted further assurance that other members of the jury had not been compromised by discussions with the juror in question.
Madam Justice C.L. Dawson had the juror brought in and questioned her as to whether she had discussed the connection with any other jurors. She said she had not and that she had not even been aware the daughter was connected to the case.
The trial continued with the Crown’s first witness, Erin Gregory, Gwenda Gregory’s daughter, who found the body.
The trial is expected to go on for three weeks.
