Dennis Oland's brown jacket was handled by officer without gloves

The brown sports jacket seized from Dennis Oland's bedroomcloset was touched by the former lead investigator with his bare hands, the murder trial heard on Monday.

It was also kept folded up in a paper bag for about four months before being examined forensically,Saint John Police Force Const. DavidMacDonaldtestified.

The jacket is akey piece of evidence in the Crown's case against DennisOlandin the 2011 bludgeoningdeath of his father, prominent businessman RichardOland.The court has previouslyheard the jackethadfour areas of blood on it that matched the victim's DNA profile.

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MacDonald, who was the forensics officer in charge of photographing and documenting the items seized during the July 14, 2011 search of DennisOland'sRothesayhome, testified that he askedConst. Rick Russell which items he wanted seized from the masterbedroomcloset.

Russell, who was the lead investigator at the time and the officer in charge of the interior search,pointed out the brown sports jacket.

"He grabbed it by the sleeve with his bare hands," saidMacDonald, who had carefully donned a fresh pair of latex gloves for each of the 57 items seized to avoid any contamination of evidence.

"Before I could say, 'Don't touch that,' he'd already touched it."he said.

Russell, who retired about three months after the search, testified at the trial last week, but was not asked about handling the jacket.

The body of Richard Oland, 69,was discovered lying face down in a pool of blood in his investment firm office on July 7, 2011.

Theprominent businessman had suffered 45 sharp and blunt force injuries to his head, neck and hands.

Dennis Oland, 47, who was the last known person to see his father alive during a meeting at his Canterbury Street office the night before, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder.

The accused told police during a voluntary statement on July 7 thathe was wearing a navy blazer when he visited his father, but video surveillance of him earlier thatday shows he was wearing a brown jacket.

A week later, a busload of about30 officers descended upon his Gondola Point Road home, armed with a search warrant.

Jacket examined 4 months later

MacDonaldsaid he placed the jacket into a paper bag that measured about 30 centimetres by 30 centimetres.

"It barely fit in there, so I just folded it up as best as I could and put it into it," he said under direct examination by Crown prosecutor Patrick Wilbur.

Defence lawyer Alan Gold has previously suggested to the court the jacket was "crumpled up"before being put into the bag.

Gold asked RCMP blood stain analyst Brian Wentzell if there wasa "real risk of changing the evidence" because different parts of the jacket had come into contact with others.

"I guess the potential is there," repliedWentzell. He added later, however, that blood has to be in a "wet, liquid state" in order to be transferred.

The jury was shown a photograph of the wrinkled jacket on Monday.MacDonald said the wrinkles were from being in a bag "for several months."

He didn't examine the jacket until Nov. 9 and Nov. 17 about four months after it was seized, the court heard.

MacDonald said there was a staffing shortage that summer and he had to juggle testing items with some of his other duties.

He started by visually examiningthe jacket under a bright light, scanning up and down andleft to right. He found four "areas of discolouration," on the upper left chest and both sleeves,which he circled with a white wax pencil.

He numbered the "reddish" areas that "appeared to be embedded in the material"and photographed them with a ruler next to each one, to indicate their size. They measured from sub-millimetre to about two centimetres.

Kept stains 'pristine' for RCMP testing

MacDonald didn't test the first three areas for the possible presence of blood because swabbing "could take away substance that's in that area," he said.

He wantedto leave them "pristine" and let the RCMP forensics laboratory handle that, he said.

MacDonald did do a presumptive test for blood inthe fourth area, located inside the right cuff, which appeared "diluted" and "may have been exposed to liquid."

He got a "weak positive" result after 15 seconds, he said.

The defence has previously argued that the RCMP standard for such tests is 10 seconds and that anything longer should be considered negative.

MacDonaldsaid the brown sportsjacket had a dry cleaning tag stapled to the back of the collar.

He also seized a dry cleaning receipt found on top of a bureau in the masterbedroom, as well as some other dry cleaning tags, found in the garbage can in themaster bedroom's ensuitebathroom.

The receipt was dated July 8, 2011, at 9:08 a.m. just hours after police told Oland he was considered a suspect in his father's death and that search warrants would be executed against him.

The receipt, which was under the name ofOland'swife, Lisa,was for 19 items, including two sports jackets, a pair of pants and 16 shirts, the court has heard.

It indicated the items would be ready for pickup within three days. But that was crossed out and "SAT" was written instead, referring to Saturday, the following day.

MacDonald said he drove to Halifax to hand-deliverthe sports jacket to the RCMP lab for further testing. Normally, items are sent by Purolator, but are hand-delivered "in serious cases."

Saint John police sent 12 submissions to the RCMP lab for testing, witheach one ranging from one item to "upwards of 20," he said.

Blackberry had 'weak-positive' result for blood

Swabs of Dennis Oland'sBlackberry wereamong the items sent.

MacDonald photographed and examined the smartphoneon July 25, 2011,testing the keypad and buttons for the possible presence of blood.

On Sept. 8, 2011, he checked the Blackberry again, taking the back off and doing a hemastix test on the battery. He got a "weak positive" result, so he swabbed the battery and the housing for further testing, he said.

The court has previously heard that Olandused the phone around the time he went to visit his father at his office on July 6, 2011.

He had mistakenly sent a text message to his sister, Lisa Bustin, instead of his wife, also named Lisa, at 6:12 p.m. "I am at my dads [sic]office doing historystuff. I shud[sic] not be too long," the text messagestated.

The accused also told police his wife had called him just as he was leavingthe office, asking where he was.

The defence hasn't cross-examined MacDonald yet. Wilbur asked that he be stood down and recalled later in the trial, when the Crownplans to deal with some DNA evidence.

Meanwhile, Justice John Walsh told the jurythe Crown and defence reached an agreement on some other issues without MacDonald having to testify about them.

As a result, the jury was dismissed early because the Crown didn't have another witness lined up.

"It's not wasted time, we've saved time," stressed Walsh.

The judge also gave the jury some "mid-trial instructions" regarding the preliminary inquiry held last year, which has been mentioned several times during the trial.

"The fact, purpose and result of the preliminary inquiry is not something you can consider in deciding" whether theCrown has proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, said Walsh.

He also said it's"perfectly proper" for witnessesto review their previous statements or evidence to prepare for trial and that it's a"common occurrence" for lawyers to interviewwitnesses before trial. There's"nothing unusual or improper"about that, he said.

The trial resumes onTuesday at 9:30 a.m. when the Crown plans to call a new, unidentifiedwitness.