Crown says accused Sweeney killer was 'very prepared to take a life' and hide his secret for 25 years

After five weeks of testimony and delays at the Sudbury courthouse, the lawyers in theRene Sweeney murder trial painted very different pictures of the accused killer in their closing arguments Monday.

Steven Wright, 43,is accused of fatally stabbing the 23-year-old Laurentian University studentin a south-end adultvideo store in January 1998 when he was still in high school.

The defence says he was just a "scared teenager" who made the "stupid decision" to run away from the "horrific" murder scene he found in the store that day, who ended up being "fit in" to the "convoluted theory" pushed by Sudbury police and the Crown Attorney.

The Crown says the former boy scout was "very prepared" that day to steal, kill and then hide the truth for 25 years using the "useful fiction" that he ran off in a "panic."

"This case is really a whodunit?" defence lawyer Michael Lacy told the13 jurors at the start of his closing argument onMonday morning, about half of whom were wearing face masks.

But Lacy said unlike when watching a crime drama on Netflix, the only question for the jurors to answer is: has the Crown proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Wright killed Sweeney?

"The clear answer is no," Lacy told them.

"There are significant reasonable doubts in this case."

Lacy pointed to the drops of blood found in the snow going in the opposite direction that Wright took when running from the Adults Only Video store on Jan. 27, 1998.

He asked the jurors to consider how the footprints police investigators found in the snow didnot match the ones found in the bathroom ofthe store, where the killer is believed to have washed up.

Lacy asked why the murder weapon, or the magazines and sex toys stolen from the store,weren't found with the bloody jacket and gloves Wright says he stashed in the bush after finding Sweeney dead in the store and attempting to help her.

He also told the jury that if Wright had stolen the$178.25 missing from the cash box, his fingerprints would have been on the "springy things" that hold the money down, not on the side of the tray, where Wright says he steadied himself while trying to check Sweeney's vital signs.

He told the jurors that their job is"not choosing between" Wright and John Fetterly, who was charged with the murder for one day in February 1998 and who the defence has suggested the police did not properly look at as a suspect.

"But what about Fetterly? What about his disposition for violence? What about his fascination for knives? What about him lying about the last time he was in Sudbury?" Lacy told the court.

Lacy said of Wright that there is"not a single iota of evidence that he knew her" and nothing to suggest why an 18-year-old high school student would commita"horrific, brutal homicide... something committed by someone who had hatred for Rene Sweeney."

"They were complete strangers," Lacy told the jury.

"This was not just trying to get away. There was something very personal about attacking someone 27 times with a knife."

Lacy said"it defies reason and common sense" that Wright would stab a total stranger 27 times just because he was caught stealing pornographic magazines.

When Wright took the stand earlier this month, he told the court that he regrets not staying at the murder scene and not coming forward to investigators earlier.

"You can all judge him for not doing those things," Lacy told the jury, but that doesn't mean he killed Sweeney.

"Those are not the actions of a murderer. Those are the actions of a kid making a mistake."

If he had gotten away with murder, Lacy suggested that Wright, who went on to attend Laurentian University and then work at the hospital in North Bay, would have moved far away from northern Ontario and likely would have changed his appearance, so he wouldn't resemble the suspect sketches being circulated by Sudbury Police.

Lacy said that the Crown's evidence against Wright"connects him to a crimescene. It does not connect him to a crime."

"The problem for the Crown is bridging the gap."

"Justice is more than a popularity contest," he told the court, adding that it's also more than police officers making "irresponsible comments" about their confidence in Wright's guilt.

"He is an innocent person."

Lacy spent some time focusing on the male DNA found under Sweeney's fingernails, which the court has heard is a likely match for Wright.

He read transcripts from the DNA expert's testimony, where she said it got there through "some degree of force."

"'Some degree of force' does not mean assault," Lacy said, adding that while she was a Crown witness, her testimony is"actually supportive of the fact that Steve Wright did not commit this crime."

"All she could say is it wasn't from casual everyday contact."

At the end of his closing argument, Lacy said of the Sweeney family:"How can you not feel awful for them?"

"They want to make sure the person responsible for Rene's death is brought to justice," he said.

"It's not justice just to convict someone just because the police decided to charge them."

Assistant Crown Attorney Robert Parsonstold the jury that they've heard the name John Fetterly a lot during the trial.

And gesturing toward a large television screen in the courtroom, he said they were going to display all the evidence connecting Fetterly to Sweeney's murder.

"And that's it," he said when a blank white screen appeared."This is a dangerous slide to show. The Crown's not trying to be funny here."

"There's absolutely no real evidence that John Fetterly killed Rene Sweeney or that he was even in Sudbury."

He said the defence is trying to make the "difficult legal argument" that mistakes made by policetainted the entire investigation, including the misidentification of a fingerprint leading to the wrongfularrest of Fetterly, who"now we think might be guilty."

Parsons said a"strong, science-based investigation" is what led to Wright being charged with the murder.

"We don't have a lot of details about who Robert Steven Wright was," the prosecutor told the court, other than his decade spent in the boy scouts, whose motto is "be prepared."

"He was very prepared that January morning . Very prepared to take a life. Very prepared to steal. Very prepared to hide evidence. And very prepared to conceal what he had done for a quarter of a century," Parsons said.

"He remains prepared to this very day to fabricate and deflect about what happened that day in the Adults Only Video."

Parsons described Wright's account of that day as "brief blindingly clear recollections" mixed in with large periods of "complete amnesia."

He said Wright's story that he rolled up his blood-soaked gloves in his jacket when he ran out of the store is "completely contradictory" with the account of a young couple whom Wright said "walked in on him"and saw him putting something into a bag.

Parsons said another "significant crack" in Wright'sstory is his claimthat Sweeney was dead when he got there, whenthe couple testified thatthey saw Sweeney's head move after Wright fled.

He said while the defence arguesthe violent attack suggests this was a "personal crime," Parsons said it does fit with the evidence that the killer went to the bathroom to clean up, came back to find Sweeney trying to make it to the telephone before she was stabbed again.

"It's not inconsistent with someone who's in a panic," Parsons argued. "He's now realized it's bigger than he thought it was."

The Crown prosecutor questioned Wright's claim that he didn't remember having contact with Sweeney's fingernails while trying to check for a pulse, and said it was a "flight of fancy" to suggest the DNA got there through casual contact.

Parsons also argued that Wright's claim that he put both of his hands on the cash tray, where his fingerprint was found, to steady himself, "makes no sense whatsoever."

Justice Robbie Gordon is expected to give instructions to the jury on Tuesday before they go into deliberations to come up with a verdict.

That could take several days, and they'll be sequestered in a hotel until a decision is reached.