Inside the witness box of a Corner Brook courtroom on Monday morning, Marina Goodyear testified she talked with her mom just about every day.
And while she said she never saw any physical violence between Jennifer Hillier-Penney and Dean Penney, Goodyear said there were times where her mother showed her a sense of fear.
“She just told me she was scared of him,” Goodyear said. “She wouldn’t tell me why.”
Goodyear, the oldest daughter of Penney and Hillier-Penney, testified at the start of the fifth week of Penney’s first-degree murder trial in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador. Penney is charged in relation to Hillier-Penney’s death and disappearance on Nov. 30, 2016.
Penney has pleaded not guilty, and Hillier-Penney’s body has never been found.
The courtroom was full of Hillier-Penney’s family on Monday to watch and support Goodyear.
In court on Monday, Goodyear read texts between her and Hillier-Penney on Nov. 27, 2016 — just leading up to her death.
They spoke of family plans for Christmas, and how Hillier-Penney was awaiting a second interview for a new administrative job she was applying for with the RCMP.
The job would have brought her to Glovertown, around 45 minutes away from Goodyear’s new home of Clarenville.
Penney and Hillier-Penney were separated at the time of her disappearance. The court heard on Friday that Hillier-Penney had sought legal advice for a divorce proceeding less than a week before the text conversation that was shared.
In his cross-examination, defence lawyer Jeff Brace pointed to police statements that Goodyear made in the days and months after her mother’s disappearance.
When asked by Brace if she had never seen violence between the couple, Goodyear clarified that she had never seen physical violence between them.
Brace also relied on a police report made on Jan. 31, 2017, in which Goodyear spoke of other family members and friends that police should consider looking into. She also voiced concern over when initial evidence was collected.
Brace specifically mentioned Hillier-Penney’s cousin, Derick Hillier. His name was also brought up as an alternate suspect by Penney’s mother in her statement to police, saying he faced mental health problems and had strange conversations with Hillier-Penney in the months before her disappearance.
Derick Hillier — who is now dead — was also known by a nickname Brace and Goodyear used in court, Smurf.
“Smurf is a known criminal anyway,” Goodyear said in the police statement. “I would have had the cops, like, do fingerprints on that vehicle and check for DNA right from the start, and I feel like it maybe is a bit too long before forensics came to the house.”
When asked by Brace if the comment was meant to identify Derick Hillier as a potential suspect, Goodyear snapped back — saying that narrative likely came from Penney or his mother.
“When I went to St. Anthony after my mom went missing, I went back to that house on Husky Drive. I was probably experiencing some brainwashing by my father, and by my grandmother as well,” Goodyear said.
At murder trial, Dean Penney’s daughter says her mother was ‘scared’ of him
“The only reason why Smurf was ever in my made-up suspect list in my mind is because of them.”
In the Jan. 31 statement, Goodyear said she didn’t believe her mother would leave the house alone with Penney, saying Hillier-Penney didn’t want to be around her husband.
In court, she dismissed a suggestion her mom was involved with another man, who she described as a friend.
The other two witnesses called on Monday focused on communications and phone lines in the St. Anthony area.
The first was Marlo Denny, a member of Bell Canada’s corporate security team who shared Penney’s phone records in the days leading up to the incident with investigators.
Denny noted Penney made several short phone calls leading up to Nov. 30, 2016, and noted how Penney logged more than nine hours of Internet usage that night.
While the data doesn’t show what Penney was searching for, Denny said the data usage could be explained by Penney leaving browsing tabs open on his phone over the course of the night.
Joseph Sadoun, a Montreal-based expert in the operation of cellular tower sites, outlined details of a report he created about how and where cellular towers around areas prominent to the case — like Penney’s house and cabin — overlap.
Sadoun’s report showed Penney made 109 outgoing calls between Nov. 28 and Dec. 1, 2016, and indicated the cellular tower that connected those calls. Which tower is used could pinpoint Penney’s general location, he said.
Sadoun said calls made on Nov. 30, 2016, show Penney was at his cabin in the morning, and that he spent four hours between 6 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. in St. Anthony.
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