TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 2010
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❚MARTINS MURDER
CROWN REVIEWS QUINN ACQUITTAL Tom ZYTARUK Staff Reporter
SURREY – It might not be over after all. The Crown is reviewing B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wendy Baker’s decision to acquit Katherine Quinn of second-degree murder in the stomping death of 16-year-old Matthew Martins, who was savaged by Quinn’s boyfriend, Robert Forslund. Forslund is serving a life sentence for the July 2, 2005 slaying. The B.C. Court of Appeal overturned Quinn’s murder conviction in 2007, and ordered a new trial for the Surrey mother of three. Quinn was accused of urging Forslund to kill the boy, who’d scratched her with a pen knife after she’d jumped him for his gold chain. But Baker acquitted her after the second trial, reasoning that she could not SANDRA rely on the accuracy and reliability of MARTINSwitnesses’ recollection concerning what TONER/ Quinn actually said at the scene. The “There is acquittal shocked the victim’s family and their supporters. no monWendy van Tongeren Harvey, the etary value prosecutor in the case, said the judge’s that could decision is being reviewed. replace my “We have ordered a transcript of the child.” judge’s reasons and we will be consulting with senior administrators and managers of the Criminal Justice Branch in deciding whether or not the matter needs to be pursued on an appeal basis,” she said. The Crown has 30 days to appeal the May 31 verdict. “We will have a decision well in advance of that, I’m sure,” van Tongeren Harvey said. On Sunday morning about 60 supporters of the slain teen’s family staged a rally at the Surrey Central SkyTrain Station, where the murder took place, to register their outrage over the verdict.
see QUINN VERDICT page 4
A hair-raising experience
❚PHOTO/Brian Howell
Lord Tweedsmuir’s Hayley Stewart takes flight en route to a silver medal in the senior girls’ long jump competition at the B.C. High School Track and Field Championships Saturday in Burnaby. See pages 25 and 26.