Handcuffs, hacksaws and human flesh collected in Calgary triple murder case

Calgary police amassed 1,400 pieces of evidence –including human flesh, handcuffs, leashes, knives and adult diapers –during their investigation into the disappearance of a Calgary couple and their grandson, jurors in a triple-murder trial heard Tuesday.

Douglas Garland, 56, is charged with first-degree murder in the disappearance of Alvin and Kathy Liknes and their five-year-old grandson Nathan O’Brien in 2014. Their bodies have not been recovered.

Const. Ian Oxton told court he was the first forensic investigator at Garland’s parents’ rural property north of Calgary after a search warrant was issued and he spent nine days on the property. He was assigned to the case full time in May 2015.

Investigators found over a dozen handcuffs, restraints, several knives, a large hacksaw and a leather baton in the outbuildings.

The hacksaw, which had a 63-centimetre blade, as well as rubber boots, gloves and two shiny meat hooks showed signs of having DNA.

He said it was the condition of the hacksaw and the meat-hooks that drew their attention.

“They were nice and shiny. They were pristine,” said Oxton.

Oxton revealed more gruesome details about two items found in and around a burn barrel.

“It looked like a piece of burnt flesh but attached to it was a very small piece of a cotton material … a very faded cotton material. The cotton material was a pink colour and the fragment itself was darkened, it was blackened,” said Oxton.

He said he did a resifting of ashes originally seized by the RCMP from the barrel and found more.

“During the process I found what I believed to be a small piece of charred flesh, again about the size of my thumbnail,” he said, adding a red liquid came off as he was examining it. Oxton said a test showed it may have been blood.

Inside the home police searched an office and storage room in the basement. They found a computer hard drive hidden in the rafters and three empty shoe boxes for a size 13 shoe, the same size as the bloody footprints found in the Liknes home.

Police also found two mannequin heads with long blonde wigs in the Garland office as well as a straitjacket and two whips. In the bottom of a closet there was a pink adult reusable diaper. Eight pairs of size 13 women’s shoes were seized from the basement.

There were 36 vials of carbocaine, a powerful dental anesthetic amongst the bottles of juice inside the refrigerator.

On the bookshelf, two books stood out to police, one about how to dispose of a dead body and another about how to manufacture nerve gas and other poisons.

A row of VHS tapes included a documentary on how to make methamphetamine, another on unsolved homicides and the British comedy “Keeping Up Appearances.”

Earlier Const. David Blackwood testified he photographed Garland and seized his clothes after his arrest. Garland had a few scrapes and bruises including on his upper lip, head and his knee, he testified.

Garland was co-operative, he said.

“He was calm,” said Blackwood.