The retrial of the woman accused of killing Vancouver teenager Matthew Martins has been postponed until tomorrow because lawyers needed time to arrange for equipment to replay testimony from the first trial.
Opening arguments in the case against Katherine Quinn — whose 2007 murder conviction was overturned last summer — were supposed to begin in New Westminster yesterday.
David Toner, Martins’ stepfather, booked time off work for the scheduled five-week trial and said it was frustrating to hear of the postponement.
“I wasn’t terribly surprised because (at the previous trial) there would be little delays,” he said. “I just wish we’d known before (leaving the house).”
Quinn has been out on bail since July 2009 and lives near Toner’s home.
He said seeing her again filled him with “disgust.”
“She has changed her hair style, but she basically looks the same,” Toner said, adding she was dressed casually — in a pink sweater and sunglasses.
“She still presents as someone who is cocky and too sure of herself and doesn’t show the proper respect to the setting.”
Quinn and her boyfriend Robert Forslund were convicted of second-degree murder in the 2005 beating death of 16-year-old Martins and each given life sentences.
Quinn appealed her conviction and was granted a new trial.
Toner said he hopes that by entering much of the evidence from the first trial by way of transcript and CD — which saves the court from re-examining witnesses — the trial will be shortened.
