Kelowna

Photo: Ragnar Haagen

Friends and family of Lynn Kalmring speak with reporters outside the Kelowna Courthouse on Jan. 30. The man charged with second-degree murder in the death of a Penticton woman in August 2011 made an appearance in a Kelowna courtroom hoping to have his bail conditions reviewed.

Keith Gregory Wiens wore prison issued red pants and a long sleeved white shirt. His salt and peppered hair was long and stringy, but his beard was freshly trimmed. He showed no emotion when Justice Peter Rogers denied the request for bail.

That did not come as a surprise to friends and family members of Lynn Kalmring, the common - law partner Wiens is accused of murdering.

“He shows no emotion. If you can pick your teeth while the judge is talking, that just shows the kind of person you are,” says Lynn’s sister, Shelley Pertelson.

“He hasn’t cried a tear for my mom at all, not one,” chimed in Lynn’s daughter, Brandy Cummings.

“He never shed a tear, ever, not once for his crime. If anything, he shed a tear for himself and that was: oh no, what did I do? But never once for my mom!

“We’ve done nothing but cry since it happened and he hasn’t shed a tear for anyone but himself.”

The two ladies agree that today’s decision has come as a relief to them both, especially since the decision could have gone either way.

Wiens, a retired Mountie, will go back to remand at the Kamloops Regional Correctional Facility until his trial date on May 27 in Kelowna.