UPDATED: 12:31 p.m.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has provided a glimpse at some of the complex evidence yet to be called in the trial of a Kamloops lawyer charged with first-degree murder in the death of one of his clients.

Justice Kathleen Ker granted a Crown application on Wednesday morning allowing prosecutors to call as many as 10 expert witnesses in the trial of Butch Bagabuyo — double the number typically allowed in such a case.

Bagabuyo, 57, is accused of killing Mohd Abdullah on March 11, 2022. Prosecutors allege he stabbed Abdullah to death inside his Victoria Street law office after spending a large sum of his money, then enlisted the help of an unknowing elderly friend to dispose of the evidence.

Kamloops Mounties have said the investigation into the slaying was “unprecedented” in its complexity.

Ker got into that a little bit on Wednesday morning.

“In this case, the allegation is that Mr. Bagabuyo stabbed the deceased several times in the chest and then undertook a number of steps to cover up the events,” she said.

“The aspects of the investigation include biological evidence over multiple sites, digital evidence pertaining to numerous electronic devices and forensic crime scene evidence, including trace evidence, friction ridge comparisons from fingerprints and blood pattern analysis.”

Long list of experts

Among the 10 experts prosecutors want to call to testify are a wood comparison expert, who is expected to link a homemade garrotte found around Abdullah’s neck to wood shavings found in Bagabuyo’s backyard, as well as a digital forensics examiner who cracked into an iPhone and a Thompson Rivers University hard drive that police could not access.

Also on the list of experts are a forensic accountant, who will testify about what happened to the $774,000 belonging to Abdullah that Bagabuyo is alleged to have spent, and the forensic pathologist who performed Abdullah’s autopsy, as well as police experts in blood spatter analysis, fingerprints and digital forensics.

“This is not a case of the Crown introducing an unnecessary proliferation of expert opinions,” Ker said.

“Each proposed expert witness has been carefully chosen to provide evidence that is necessary to prove for the Crown.”

The Canada Evidence Act typically restricts prosecutors to five expert witnesses per trial, but Ker agreed to allow more than that due to the nature of the allegations Bagabuyo is facing.

"The complexity of the issues and the multifaceted nature of the investigation persuades me that the expert witnesses proposed are necessary," she said.

The expert witnesses are expected to begin to testify next month, after the trial shifts to the Vancouver Law Courts.

The trial is slated to continue on Wednesday afternoon with testimony from a police witness.

ORIGINAL STORY: 4 a.m.

Mounties have called their investigation into the murder of a Thompson Rivers University professor the most complex police probe in Kamloops history, and a B.C. Supreme Court judge is now getting an up-close look at what they meant.

Week 2 of Butch Bagabuyo’s first-degree murder trial got underway on Tuesday at the Kamloops Law Courts. The 57-year-old lawyer is accused of killing his client, 60-year-old Mohd Abdullah, on March 11, 2022.

According to prosecutors, Bagabuyo and Abdullah worked together in 2016 to hide $774,000 from Abdullah’s ex-wife during his separation. Abdullah, who worked as a computer sciences instructor at TRU, was trying to collect that money in the months leading up to his death.

The Crown has alleged Bagabuyo killed Abdullah after burning through the money, stabbing him to death inside his second-floor law office in the 300-block of Victoria Street and then enlisting the help of an unknowing elderly friend to rent a cargo van and help dispose of the evidence.

Abdullah was reported missing after failing to show up to work at TRU on March 14, 2022. His body was discovered three days later inside a large storage tote in the back of a cargo van parked outside the home of Bagabuyo’s friend.

In 2022, then-Kamloops RCMP Supt. Syd Lecky said the investigation into Abdullah’s death was “unprecedented” in its complexity.

Where did they go?

Last week, court spent hours watching and dissecting security video obtained by police as part of their investigation.

The videos come from dozens of locations in Kamloops and one in Cache Creek — homes, businesses like The Home Depot and Denny’s, and institutions like Royal Inland Hospital and TRU. The clips are the result of painstaking work by investigators to comb through private footage.

In court, RCMP Cpl. David Marshall used the clips to stitch together a timeline of events for Bagabuyo and Wynand Rautenbach, the elderly friend he asked to help him dispose of a bin containing problematic evidence. Rautenbach did not know the bin contained Abdullah’s body.

On Tuesday, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Kathleen Ker granted Castanet’s application for video exhibits, so we can now show you what was played in court.

The clips shown so far show two men renting a van from the Budget on Notre Dame Drive on March 15, 2022, then driving that vehicle and Bagabuyo’s Honda Pilot around the city.

Their journey included a stop at a park near Bagabuyo's Columbia Street home, during which it is alleged the bin was loaded into the van.

Court has heard Bagabuyo and Rautenbach put nearly 600 kilometres on the rental van, but it’s not clear where exactly they went when they were outside of the gaze of security cameras.

In court on Tuesday, Marshall said security cameras show the rental van took one hour to drive from Kamloops to Cache Creek on March 16, 2022, but took three hours to return home.

Testifying last week, Rautenbach said he and Bagabuyo couldn’t find a good spot to dispose of the bin, and he mentioned Bagabuyo throwing something into a garbage bin at a rest stop near Tobiano.

The trial continues

Bagabuyo’s nine-week trial will continue at the Kamloops Law Courts on Wednesday, when prosecutors are expected to call another police witness.

The trial will move to the Vancouver Law Courts on May 5.

Photo: Castanet

Butch Bagabuyo leaves the Kamloops Law Courts on April 14, following Day 1 of his first-degree murder trial.