Friends, family and coworkers of the late Laura Letts-Beckett were among those who took the stand in the first week of the first-degree murder trial against Peter Beckett.
The trial began in Kamloops Supreme Court Tuesday, Jan. 19 with a lengthy opening statement from Crown prosecutor Sarah Firestone alleging Beckett murdered his wife, Letts-Beckett, with a motive of financial gain, Kamloops This Week reported.
Beckett, 59, stands accused of murder in the drowning death of Letts-Beckett, a former Dapp School teacher, in Upper Arrow Lake near Revelstoke, B.C. in August 2010, while the couple was on vacation. He was arrested a year later in August 2011 and has been in jail ever since.
Beckett maintains his innocence saying a gust of wind pushed his wife overboard from their boat. He also stands charged with two counts of counseling to commit murder and a single count of obstruction of justice after allegedly trying to arrange the murders of several key witnesses while in custody.
According to Kamloops This Week, a judge and a 14-person jury has now heard four days of testimony from a handful of Crown witnesses, in the first week of what is expected to be a three-month long trial.
Testimony from Letts-Beckett’s mother Beth Letts, the first witness called by the Crown, shed light on the couple’s troubled marriage and Beckett’s control over his wife.
She recalled accompanying Letts-Beckett while filing a police report with Westlock RCMP in September 2007 alleging physical abuse. The couple separated soon afterwards, but reconciled in January 2008.
Letts-Beckett’s cousin Virginia Lyons-Friesen, friend and colleague Kim Webster and Frank Spearin, a friend and former employer of Beckett’s also took the stand.
Lyons-Friesen recalled a horrific argument between the couple at her Calgary condo in 2007, while Webster testified that Letts-Beckett had confided in her about an abusive relationship in December 2008.
The couple met at a tourist attraction in Beckett’s native New Zealand in 1995 and wed in 2003.
