In Calgary courts: Jurors make quick work in finding city man guilty of brutal rape of Calgary senior in her assisted living residence​on February 7, 2025 at 11:51 pm

At one point court proceedings had to be interrupted when a sheriff indicated Buffalo, who got on the floor in the prisoner’s box, may have fallen asleep.

Court also heard from the woman’s daughter, who received a call from her mother after the incident occurred.

The daughter told Crown prosecutor Matt Dalidowicz, her mom had begun to develop dementia and she wasn’t certain the victim was relating actual events.

“She was frantic. I’ve never heard my mom speak like that before,” she testified.

“She was crying, she was so upset . . . It was horrible to listen to. She was obviously frightened.”

The daughter immediately came down from Edmonton, seeing her mother the following morning after she’d been discharged from the hospital.

She said her mother was still adamant she’d been sexually assaulted.

“She said, ‘I know that I was sexually assaulted last night. I know it. The guy’s shirt is still in my bedroom.’”

At that point the woman discovered two articles of clothing, a T-shirt and sweatshirt, that did not belong to her mom, items Dalidowicz said will be crucial for jurors to decide the case.

“Mom had found it (the T-shirt) on her bed and kind of threw it off and left it (on the floor),” she said.

The daughter found a light-coloured sweatshirt in her mom’s storage room and told her she needed to call the police to return.

At that time an officer suggested she should return to the hospital and undergo a rape kit test, which she did.

The woman said her mother died a little over a year ago.

Before evidence began, Hollins told jurors that Buffalo has chosen to represent himself, but the judge has appointed an amicus curiae, defence lawyer Bev Broadhurst, to represent the interests of the court.

The trial is set for four weeks.

Police discovered a single, spent 9mm cartridge by the body of slain Calgary teen Jal Acor Jal, court heard Monday.

And Crown prosecutor Todd Buziak, in a brief opening detailing his case, said the cartridge matched a firearm found in the bedroom of a Calgary youth charged with Jal’s murder.

According to a statement of agreed facts read in by Buziak and signed by defence counsel Andrea Urquhart and her client, who can’t be named, police executed a search warrant at a northwest Calgary home five days after Jal was fatally shot.

There they seized a semiautomatic rifle, two cartridge magazines and 33 live 9mm cartridges, Buziak told Calgary Court of King’s Justice Paul Jeffrey.

“The young person did not have a licence to possess any firearms, ammunition, prohibited devices or ballistic body armour,” Buziak said.

Urquhart’s client, now 18, faces a charge of second-degree murder in the March 31, 2022, shooting death of Jal, 16.

CCTV footage from two northwest Calgary LRT stations as well as from two transit buses and a business near the Crowfoot CTrain station allowed police to track the last hour or so of Jal’s life, court was told.

Jal, who was 6 ft. 3 in. and weighed 146 pounds, a full seven inches taller and 14 pounds heavier than his alleged murderer, was first captured on video at the Dalhousie station at 6:30 p.m., the prosecutor said.

Video showed Jal pacing about the station for 52 minutes, occasionally seen carrying and manipulating his cellphone, before leaving and boarding a bus at 7:22 p.m.

He was dropped off at the Crowfoot station around 7:38 p.m. and walked around for about seven minutes before heading to a nearby bus loop.

Video from a bus and nearby video captured the deceased walking with a person police deemed a person of interest in the direction of Stoney Trail N.W.

Jal’s body was found nearby, Buziak said.

“Police found the deceased’s body … and located a spent 9mm cartridge casing,” the prosecutor said.

The accused’s trial is scheduled to last three weeks, but may conclude sooner.

KMartin@postmedia.com

X: @KMartinCourts