Sarnia murder trial accused had a ‘nasty’ cut on hand: girlfriend

Joshua Tomlinson’s then-girlfriend admitted she knew the cut on his hand wasn’t from a paint putty spatula.

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Surie Landry-Caudle, testing Thursday at her ex’s joint jury murder trial, agreed with one of the defense lawyers cross-examining her those objects aren’t very sharp.

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“No, they’re not,” she said.

But the injury on the back of his left hand raised red flags as it was a pretty gnarly cut.

“It was a serious wound,” she said. “A really nasty, unfriendly looking cut.”

Landry-Caudle, a Crown witness on the stand for the second straight day, previously testified Tomlinson came home on Jan. 26, 2021 around 3 pm injured and wearing new clothes. She added Thursday he seemed a little more stressed than usual, but otherwise appeared pretty normal and not high on drugs or going through withdrawal, despite battling a fentanyl addiction at the time.

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She also noticed a Walmart receipt for several of the new items he had with him, including a cellphone, new boots and baseball cap. This didn’t make her suspicious the items were stolen, she agreed with Terry Brandon, Tomlinson’s lawyer.

Tomlinson, 38, and Noah Brown, 31, both pleaded not guilty last week to second-degree murder and breaking and entering at the start of what’s expected to be a five-week trial into the death of Allen Schairer. The 62-year-old avid photographer and former city parks employee was discovered stabbed to death in the bathtub of his Devine Street home on Jan. 26, 2021 after his car was found abandoned on the outskirts of the city earlier that day.

Landry-Caudle testified Thursday she tried to treat his hand injury despite not believing how it occurred, but ther didn’t last long as she was knocked out by the wound.

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“I could see bone,” she recalled.

Despite doubting her explanation, she testified she didn’t believe her relatively new boyfriend had been up to any overnight criminal activity Jan. 25-26, 2021, other than breaking his court-ordered curfew. But after Tomlinson was arrested and charged with murder, she recalled seeing blood drops on his jeans between the hip and knee and pulled them out of the dirty laundry and gave them to the police. She also gave them a new speaker that showed up at their house at the time.

Landry-Caudle was asked by Brandon what motivated her to volunteer these items during her boyfriend’s arrest.

“At the time I was still recovering from my brother’s murder a year or two prior, so I wanted to, from a victim’s perspective… help,” she said.

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Jesse Mowat-Caudle, 26, died on April 18, 2019, after being stabbed in a Maxwell Street driveway. A 32-year-old Sarnia man was sentenced in January 2021 – within days of Schairer’s death – to 10 years in prison.

Landry-Caudle also told Brandon, during cross-examination, Tomlinson later proposed to her, but she called off their engagement about a year ago.

Brown’s lawyer, Michael Moon, who pointed out putty spatulas aren’t very sharp, focused on the early days of their relationship and how Tomlinson moved into her home just three weeks after they met despite him having just been released from prison with a six- criminal record page featuring 82 convictions. Moon took Landry-Caudle through a slew of his break-ins.

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He also highlighted a series of assaults and asked her if she had concerns about a man she barely knew moving in with her and her young children.

“He never showed me any aggression, so I didn’t think it was an issue,” she responded.

Moon later argued claims that Tomlinson wasn’t living a criminal lifestyle while living with her for about three months were false as he participated in break-ins and stole a tablet from her children, something she confirmed but said it was to buy drugs. He also pointed out Tomlinson overdosed multiple times, including in her bathroom, despite discussions of not using drugs in her house.

Moon then focused on how she didn’t tell police about the new boots being on the Walmart receipt and instead brought it up for the first time at the preliminary inquiry more than a year later. Near the end, he accused Tomlinson of asking her during jailhouse visits, which are recorded, to help him with evidence at the prelim and the trial.

“I’m not 100 per cent sure,” she responded.

The trial continues Monday.

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@ObserverTerry

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