ST. THOMAS — After three years, possible answers to how the remains of a missing Mississauga man ended up in an abandoned chest freezer found on a Lake Erie beach will start to be revealed this week in an Elgin County courtroom.
A jury was selected Tuesday to hear the trial of Chad Reu-Waters, 48, of Haldimand County, who pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Ashley Max Domenic Pereira, 33, a man last seen alive in Mississauga on March 6, 2002.
Seventeen years later, on May 7, 2019, human remains were found in a discarded chest freezer on a beach down from a steep bluff near Port Burwell, southeast of St. Thomas. A police helicopter was needed to remove the freezer from the area.
Charges were laid against Reu-Waters three months later.
Reu-Waters, sporting a shaved head, dark blue hoodie and gray pants in the ornate Elgin County courtroom prisoner’s box, also pleaded not guilty to indecently offering an indignity to human remains by concealing them in a locked freezer.
In his initial comments to the jury panel, Superior Court Justice Kirk Munroe gave a bare account of the case, adding it is the Crown’s belief the freezer, with the body in it, was stored in the basement of South Coast Hobbies and Rides in Simcoe before it was found on the beach.
The Superior Court jury trial is slated for two weeks, but the judge warned potential jurors it could last longer.
The actual jury selection didn’t take long. Fourteen jurors – eight men and six women – will hear the case. Two alternates, a man and a woman, were selected to join the jury when they return Thursday.
The jury won’t start hearing evidence until then, when assistant Crown attorney Meredith Gardiner is expected to make her opening remarks, followed by testimony from a long list of witnesses.
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