The husband and wife duo accused of murdering former Cochranite Ryan Lane are denying involvement in the man’s death, claiming the husband’s brother took matters into his own hands.
Timothy Rempel, 30, told the court his brother, Wilhelm Rempel, admitted to burning Ryan Lane’s body.
Both the Crown and Wilhelm’s defence lawyer objected to the accused’s statements and it was later ruled ‘hearsay’ and the jury was asked to “ignore” the comments.
Timothy, Wilhelm, and his wife, Sheena Cuthill, 30, are each charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in the connection with the death of former Cochranite Ryan Lane.
Cuthill and Lane had split shortly after the birth of their daughter in 2007 and were in a custody battle when Lane went missing on Feb. 6, 2012.
Timothy said he left Lane alive after their meeting in the early morning hours of Feb. 7. The accused admitted to luring Lane to the meeting the night of Feb. 6, 2012 after calling from a payphone and saying he had photos of Lane’s daughter and his ex (Cuthill).
Timothy testified that he had enlisted his brother’s help with the meeting because he thought Lane would not meet with him if Lane realized he was Cuthill’s husband.
During Timothy’s testimony on Tuesday, he told the jury that he had wanted to meet with Lane to tell him, “If you are going to be a dad then do it, but it is not a part time job.”
After arranging with Wilhelm to pick Lane up at a northwest parking lot in Calgary, Timothy told his brother not to talk to Lane, “you are a taxi driver, a chauffer.”
The two drove out to meet Timothy in a rural area outside of the city and the meeting quickly went south as Timothy realized that Lane was still “fixated” on Cuthill, he testified.
Timothy said that Lane shoved him first and the accused reacted and hit Lane in the face, breaking his nose.
“When I hit him, I hit with most of what I got,” Timothy said.
“(Lane) was crying and being emotional and I told him if he can’t get past this then this conversation is over.”
When the defence lawyer asked if Lane was alive when Timothy left, he said yes.
The custody battle started in October 2011 after Cuthill had filed the papers to get full custody of their daughter. Lane had not seen the girl since she was one-year-old and Cuthill’s new husband, Timothy, had wanted to adopt the girl and have her take his last name, Cuthill testified last Friday.
Once Cuthill started the process she said she had never expected to “hear anything from (Lane)” and was surprised when she found out there was opposition.
Last week, Cuthill was also took the stand and was grilled by the Crown on her involvement in Lane’s death.
Cuthill had received a text at 1:20 a.m. on Feb. 6, 2012 from Timothy that read, “Give me the okay,” and Cuthill replied at 1:24 a.m. “Okay.”
Cuthill denies the text was to approve killing Lane.
“I wasn’t part of that plan, I didn’t know what they were going to do,” Cuthill testified.
“None of this was my idea.”
Once the custody battle started, Cuthill said she was very “upset” and “mad at (Lane)” for putting her through it, admitting to being on anti-depressants after the birth of her second child.
“I had post-partum very bad. I was very depressed,” Cuthill said.
During the custody battle, Cuthill texted her mother stating she wanted to “stab him in the neck with a pen” or “punch him in the junk,” referring to Lane. When asked by defence what she meant, Cuthill said the texts were “inappropriate jokes.”
On Nov. 19, 2011 Cuthill texted her mother “In all of ur life with the bikers u hung out with n whoever else… Did u ever make pple dissapear?”
Cuthill said she was talking about “making people pack their bags, walk away and disappear.”
“I didn’t want to deal with how I used to deal with things,” Cuthill said.
When cross-examined by Crown prosecutor Tom Buglas on Monday, Cuthill admitted that she knew the meeting might get violent.
“I knew there was going to be fighting, yeah,” Cuthill said.
“How can you make a decision on behalf of your daughter if you didn’t know what they were going to do… shouldn’t you know the details as a mother,” Buglas asked.
Cuthill said the prosecutor was giving her “more power or authority than what it was.”
The Crown continued to question Cuthill and told her several times “don’t be cute” when Cuthill would respond that she did not know what was going to happen or what happened.
“I'm going to suggest to you that the plan was to murder Ryan Lane," Buglas said.
"OK," Cuthill replied.
The Crown finished presenting their evidence last Monday, which included the text messages, taped phone calls, Lane’s DNA that was found in the Rempel brother’s vehicles, and burnt human remains from a burn barrel in a rural area by Beiseker that also included Lane’s class ring and pieces of a cell phone.
The co-accused husband and wife duo took the stand in their own defence during the fourth and fifth week in the trial. It is unknown if Wilhelm’s lawyer will call on him to testify.
