Allen Tehrankari phoned his sister-in-law Barbara Galway dozens of times in the days leading up to her death, a Crown prosecutor said Thursday.
Tehrankari called Galway “late at night from the ESSO repeatedly,” assistant Crown attorney David Elhadad told Susan Pearce — who is the sister of the deceased and the wife of the accused — while she took the stand Thursday.
According to Elhadad, there was “an absolute eruption of phone calls” that originated from Tehrankari’s gas station on Dec. 29, 2004.
Phone records showed that later that night, Tehrankari and Galway spoke for 43 minutes.
On Jan. 5, 2005, Galway arrived in Ottawa to see her sister. The next day, Galway’s body, which had been set on fire, was discovered in the Mer Bleue Conservation Area. She had been sexually assaulted.
Charged with first-degree murder, Tehrankari is representing himself in court.
The Crown is alleging Tehrankari developed romantic feelings for Galway, but Pearce said she wasn’t aware of any problems in her marriage, even after her brothers approached her to say Galway said there was.
“I love my sister dearly,” said Pearce. “But in my mind, she was hallucinating about things.”
“I don’t know what she was lying about, but she was lying about a lot of things. What she said could not be trusted.”
The trial continues.
