ALEXANDER LaGlace jabbed his finger repeatedly at an undercover police officer's chest, describing where he stabbed his girlfriend to death, a B.C. Supreme Court justice heard Wednesday.
The testimony came from the undercover officer who had posed as a crime boss in a "Mr. Big" sting operation, in which police officers pretended to recruit LaGlace into a criminal organization.
LaGlace, 47, is charged with the seconddegree murder of Tammy-Lynn Cordone, 43, whose body was found May 19, 2009 in a tent in West Vancouver's Lighthouse Park. LaGlace and Cordone were both homeless and had been living in the park at the time.
LaGlace is on trial before Justice Terry Schultes, who is hearing the case without a jury.
On March 27, 2010, LaGlace went with the undercover officer posing as the crime boss and a second officer posing as a member of the gang to a bushy area near Park Royal Shopping Centre, the officer testified.
The officers had taken LaGlace there to try to find the knife that he said in earlier wiretapped conversations he'd used to stab Cordone 10 to 15 times. Police never found the weapon.
LaGlace said in wiretapped conversations played in court he wasn't sure if he'd buried it there, or thrown it into the river.
But while the three men were at the bushy area, LaGlace described where he'd stabbed Cordone, pointing repeatedly to areas of the other officer's chest, the pretend "crime boss" testified.
"He was physically pointing at (the other officer's) chest . . . showing where he had actually stabbed her," said the undercover officer, whose identity is protected by the court.
LaGlace said Cordone was drunk when she was stabbed, the officer said.
He said LaGlace told him afterwards he went to sleep.
"When he woke up, her body was half in the tent and half out of the tent," said the officer. "Her body was slumped over and there was a pool of blood in front of her."
In an earlier conversation that day recorded inside a vehicle as the three men drove to Park Royal, LaGlace told the officers, "There was so much . . . blood."
In the wiretapped conversation, played in court, LaGlace told the officers "I remember throwing a garbage bag and emptying into a dumpster."
He said he didn't know if the knife was in the bush, but thought he had buried some medication and a blanket there.
During the conversation outside Park Royal, LaGlace said he cleaned up Cordone's body, laid her in the tent and covered her up before leaving the scene, the undercover officer testified.
The officers had used a ruse that they had a terminally-ill prisoner willing to confess to Cordone's murder but needed details of the killing to make sure any "loose ends" could be dealt with by the "crime boss."
After LaGlace told the officers about the killing, "all of a sudden he started talking about someone else possibly being there at Lighthouse Park and him blacking out," the officer testified. LaGlace then started saying he couldn't remember anything, the officer said.
Three days after that, LaGlace was arrested and charged with Cordone's murder.
Cordone's body was discovered after LaGlace made a middle-of-the-night 9-1-1 call to police on May 19, telling them he had returned to their campsite and found her dead.
A pathologist determined Cordone died after being stabbed 18 times.
Police who first arrived at the scene found no signs of struggle in the tent.
Police detained LaGlace that day. But after an unsuccessful attempt to get a confession, he was released.
The trial continues.
