A former BC lawyer who was accused of the first degree murder of his client owed him more than $ 700,000, according to the prosecutors of the crown.
Rogelio “Butch” Bagabuyo is accused of first-degree murder in the death of Mohd Abdullah in March 2022, a computer science professor at Thompson Rivers University, in the interior-south city of Kamloop.
Bagabuyo’s trial, which is being heard alone before a judge, began on Monday. On Tuesday, the prosecutor of the crown, Ann Katrine Saettler, told Judge Kathleen Ker that Abdullah had given Bagabuyo the strong sum in 2016 when his marriage was coming to an end.
According to the theory of the Crown events, the computer teacher hoped to recover the money after his divorce was over, and in March 2022, he was still waiting for Bagabuyo to return it. The money is still missing, according to the crown.
The last day Abdullah was seen alive was on March 11, 2022, when he was filmed walking to the Bagabuyo office in the center of Kamloop.
His remains were found days later in a plastic container at the back of a rental truck. An autopsy confirmed several white weapon wounds in the upper left chest of Abdullah and the back.
The crown says he plans to show that Bagabuyo killed Abdullah in his office, placed the body in a plastic bag and subsequently transferred him to the truck.
Witness takes support
Justin Robertson was the first witness to take the stand on Tuesday, after calling 911 to inform that the rental truck outside the house of his grandparents in the Dufferin neighborhood of Kamloop contained human remains.
Robertson testified that he and his grandmother suspected after his grandfather told them that Bagabuyo asked for his help to bury a box.
Kamloop man told the court that he put some garden gloves, entered the rental truck and opened the plastic bag containing the victim’s remains.
Robertson called 911 after seeing a human foot in the container.
On Monday, the first evidence presented to the courts were the rental documents for a budget truck in which the victim’s remains were found.
Other evidence items included a large bag of black storage bags, strings, disposable lighters, cables and black garbage bags with cut holes, as well as a knife, a 12 -inch blade and a shovel.
Bagabuyo was initially accused of interfering with human remains three days after Abdullah’s body was found on March 17, 2022.
More than a year later, he was accused of murder. It has been free on bail since July 2023.
Abdullah, who was 60 years old, worked at the University of Thompson Rivers for 21 years and played an important role in the Faculty of Science and open learning, according to a university statement in 2022.
Shortly after his death, Abdullah’s son -in -law told CBC News that Bagabuyo had been Abdullah’s “friend of trusted”. Abdullah’s daughter, Sarah Jeet Lalata-Buco, said her father was a quiet and kind man.
Bagabuyo’s trial will continue on Wednesday.
