WINNIPEG -- DNA testing found no traces linking a man accused of killing a 15-year-old girl to a duvet cover in which her body was found in Winnipeg's Red River, an expert witness testified Thursday.
Amarjit Chahal also told Raymond Cormier's second-degree murder trial that his lab found none of the suspect's DNA on samples from a stolen truck that the Crown believes was used to transport Tina Fontaine's body.
Tina's DNA wasn't found in samples from the truck either, Chahal said.
Chahal's lab ran mitochondrial DNA tests on 35 samples including hairs, swabs and pieces of fabric. Mitochondrial DNA tests can be less definitive than nuclear DNA tests often used in forensics, but are necessary when samples have deteriorated, he said.
A forensic pathologist testified on Wednesday that he could not determine how Tina died.
Dr. Dennis Rhee said his examinations found no definitive injuries on the outside of her body or to her internal organs. He also said there was no evidence of a sexual assault, no signs of a stabbing or of major blunt force trauma.
Tina had run away from a hotel where she was being housed by Manitoba Child and Family Services. She was being sexually exploited.
Her death in August 2014 led the province to phase out the use of hotels for kids in government care and renewed calls for a national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women.
The Crown has no eyewitnesses to Tina's death.
Crown attorney James Ross said that later in the trial jurors will hear evidence from wiretaps of Cormier's home and from some of his associates.
Ross told court there will be also be evidence that Cormier washed his truck. He asked Chahal whether DNA could be washed away.
"DNA ... can be washed out, but having said that, traces can remain," Chahal replied.
The trial also heard Thursday from a mother and daughter who let Cormier stay in a tent in their backyard on Alexander Avenue -- not far from where Tina's body was found.
Cormier, who they said went by the name Frenchy, had blankets and sheets in the tent and moved out later in the summer. Police later came by and seized some that he had left behind, they said.
The daughter, Chantelle Beardy, said she ran into Tina on a few occasions that summer. One time was outside the hotel where the girl was being housed. Two other occasions were at shopping malls.
Beardy, 19, testified she never saw Tina and Cormier together.
The trial also heard from Douglas Orr, an expert witness in textiles and fibres. He examined four fibres found in the duvet cover and compared them with three Mexican-style blankets owned by Cormier.
His results were inconclusive because Cormier's blankets were made up of more than a dozen types of recycled fabric.
"I cannot be sure ... because of the nature of the shoddy construction," Orr testified.
Police also tried to find the source of the duvet cover Tina was wrapped in.
Det.-Sgt. Esther Schmeider, who worked in the Winnipeg police homicide unit at the time, said the cover was sold by Costco Canada and 864 had been shipped to the three Costco stores in Winnipeg.
Police tracked down 100 people who had purchased covers with the same design pattern that Tina's body had been wrapped in and asked them whether they still had them.
Under cross-examination, Schmeider said Costco had given away some of the unsold duvet covers, and police could not rule out whether similar ones had been purchased elsewhere and brought to Winnipeg.
