It has been a week of intense testimony at a murder trial of Andrew Keene who is accused of killing and dismembering Alexandra Flanagan in 2007.
Undercover police officers testified this week about interviews they secretly recorded with Keene.
Over the course of three separate meetings with Keene in October of 2011, an undercover officer posing as a fake organized crime boss pressured him to confess to killing Flanagan.
In secretly recorded conversations played for the jury, the officer told Keene he had inside information Keene had killed Flanagan.
Keene repeatedly denied killing Flanagan until the officer told him that police found Flanagan’s blood in a hockey bag at Keene’s apartment during a search warrant in October 2007, shortly after some of her remains were discovered near Lackie’s Bush in Barrie. Something Keene knew nothing about, the investigator told Keene he was a liability to the fake organization.
“If you can make this go away I will give you my life,” said Keene in the recordings. The officer replied, “I can make this go away.”
Keene then started to divulge information; he said Flanagan wanted to buy ecstasy from him but claimed his memory was hazy because he had drank a texas mickey of rum.
The undercover officer promised Keene someone else already in prison would take the fall but he needed specific details about Flanagan’s death.
“How did you do her?” asked the officer in the recording. Keene doesn’t answer right away but then said, “I probably would have wrapped something around her neck.” “So you strangled her?” asks the officer. “Ya,” said Keene in a whisper.
Keene went on to describe how he dismembered Flanagan’s body and when the detective asked about any evidence, Keene replied “long gone.”
Keene also revealed three locations in Barrie where he had scattered Flanagan’s dismembered remains, including remains which hadn’t been discovered at that point. He even provided a map and a day later police found Flanagan’s torso in a bush near Highway 400 and Keene was arrested. Keene has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.
The defence argued Keene never directly confessed to killing Flanagan and the undercover officer refused to take no as an answer and threatened Keene for a confession, tactics the officer denied on the stand.
The Crown will wrap up its case next week.