Crown prosecutor Joseph Temple emphasized the similarities between the deaths of the three women and one teenage girl Cody Allan Legebokoff is alleged to have murdered as he continued Wednesday to give his closing statement to the jury at the Prince George courthouse.
Legebokoff is accused of murder in the deaths of Jill Stacey Stuchenko, 35, Cynthia Frances Maas, 35, Natasha Lynn Montgomery, 23, and Loren Donn Leslie, 15.
Temple said the murders were committed over the span of 14 months in or within driving distance of Prince George, and, for the three bodies that were found, there were similarities in the manner in which they were murdered and how they were disposed of.
Temple proposed Legebokoff had a modus operandi or "system" to target vulnerable women, sexually assault them and then kill them by inflicting massive facial and upper body blunt-force trauma and sharp-force trauma using various tools and implements.
All four murders occurred within a 14-month span, beginning with Stuchenko, whose body was found on Oct. 20, 2009 partially buried in a gravel pit off Foothills Boulevard, with the last three of the murders occurring in slightly less than three months in 2010.
Stuchenko, Maas and Montgomery were descrbed as sex trade workers addicted to crack cocaine while Leslie suffered from mental health issues, used marijuana and met Legebokoff through a social media site.
"All four were apparently willing to meet with and associate with unknown males and accompany those males to the male's residence or motor vehicle to consume drugs or alcohol," Temple said.
Temple suggested the reason Stuchenko was found in a shallow grave was because her killer discovered that digging one deep enough was too difficult and "just gave up."
Temple then proposed that when the Legebokoff killed Montgomery, who went missing in late August or early September 2010 and has never been found, he decided to dismember her body because he thought it would make it easier to dispose of her body.
Montgomery's blood had been found throughout Legebokoff's apartment as well as on an ax found in the home, which Temple said showed the attempt turned into a "horrible, bloody mess."
Consequently, Temple said, Legebokoff then decided to take his next victim to an outdoor setting before killing her. Maas' body was found Oct. 9, 2010 in L.C. Gunn Park.
Likewise, Leslie's body was found Nov. 27, 2010 in a forested area off a logging road north of Vanderhoof.
