The jury at the Anthony John Quattrocchi murder trial in Saskatoon has been excluded from the courtroom as the trial entered into a separate hearing last week.
Anything that takes place while the jury is absent cannot be reported until after the trial’s conclusion. A publication ban also prevents identifying a witness who testified last week.
Quattrocchi, 33, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of his roommate and friend, 38-year-old Benjamin Green. He is accused of strangling Green with a piece of wire in the basement of their Hudson Bay Park neighbourhood home sometime between June 21 and 26, 2014.
Quattrocchi also faces a charge of offering an indignity to human remains after police found Green’s body in a basement freezer on June 26, 2014. Officers went to the home to check on Green when his employer reported him missing.
In a video-recorded police interview the next day, Quattrocchi said he extorted Green for money to buy drugs when Green returned home from a trip to Alberta. He said he killed Green during a struggle in the basement — where Green had been forced to stay during a robbery — because he was afraid for his life.
A DNA expert testified last week that Quattrocchi’s DNA was found on two different areas of a bundle of red tape crime scene investigators collected from the basement.
All other samples submitted for testing either came up inconclusive or matched an unknown male profile, court heard.
The trial continues this week.
Related
