Grandson killed and burned

A murder trial has heard that a couple and their young grandson were violently snatched in the night and taken to a rural property where they were killed and their bodies burned.

The Crown told the jury that DNA evidence from Alvin and Kathy Liknes and five-year-old Nathan O'Brien — including a small piece of burned flesh — was found on the accused's farm north of Calgary.

Douglas Garland faces three charges of first-degree murder.

"The three individuals were violently removed from their beds and taken to the Garland farm and killed," prosecutor Vicki Faulkner said Monday in the Crown's opening statement.

"Their bodies (were) burned in a large burn barrel, with only tiny fragments of their bodies left for police to discover."

Faulkner said Garland was acting on a years-long petty grudge against Alvin Liknes over a pump patent and had been meticulously planning the killings.

She said Garland did Internet searches to keep tabs on the couple and took action "that took the form of obsessive and methodical planning" as they were about to move away.

The boy was an unintended victim, Faulkner said.

The couple and their grandson vanished from the couple's Calgary home in June 2014.

Nathan had been at an impromptu sleepover with his grandparents after they held an estate sale before moving to a community just outside Edmonton and then Mexico. When his mother, Jennifer O'Brien, arrived to pick him up the next morning, no one was home.

"The house was covered in blood, blood spattered on the walls and in thick pools in the carpet," Faulkner told the jury. "She walked through the house looking for her parents, looking for Nathan.

"She saw more blood. She saw sheets missing from beds. She did not see her parents. She did not see Nathan.

"They were gone and all that was left was blood."

Investigators combed through several properties surrounding the area near Airdrie, north of Calgary, where Garland lived before he was arrested and charged.

Garland had connections to the family. He had past business dealings with Alvin Liknes and Garland's sister was in a common-law relationship with Liknes's son.

An 11-man, three-woman jury is hearing the evidence. It's expected that there will be between 50 and 60 Crown witnesses called in the trial, which is scheduled for five weeks.