ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — When Kimberley Mulrooney heard an interview on the suppertime news one night in March last year, she paused. The man's voice was familiar to her, though she didn't know his name. Here he was, speaking to an NTV reporter on the phone, allegedly from inside the Mount Pearl home in which he had barricaded himself with weapons. Mulrooney believed the same voice had addressed her directly that morning, apologizing for robbing her.
"It was that same soft-spoken voice," Mulrooney told a Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court judge Wednesday morning. "I'm pretty much 100 per cent sure it was the same voice I heard."
Mulrooney, co-manager of Marie's Mini Mart on Moores Drive in Mount Pearl, testified at the trial of 27-year-old Justin Wiseman, telling the court she had only opened the store an hour before a man barrelled in around 8:30 a.m. on March 13, 2018.
He was dressed all in black with a bandanna over his face, she said, though she noticed some kind of tattoo over his right eyebrow. He was carrying a long knife as he jumped over the counter and rummaged through the tobacco cupboards, putting cigarette packages in a cloth shopping bag. Surveillance video shown in court revealed what appeared to be a hammer on the floor as the robber collected the cigarettes.
Mulrooney said she was scared and fumbled as she tried to use the store's computer system to open the cash drawer. At one point the robber told her to relax, she said. At another moment he called her "sweetie."
"He was talking to me, telling me that he was sorry, right from the beginning. He told me that he was sorry, that no one was helping him out. He told me numerous times that he was sorry he was doing this, but it was something he had to do," Mulrooney said.
"To me, there was no intention that he was going to hurt me, but certainly with someone with a knife, you can't really trust that person."
By the time the robber left minutes later, he had scooped up about 250 cigarettes and $417.80 in cash. Murooney said she reached for the button to alert police as he was leaving, and he noticed it, turning toward her and saying, "Don’t you push that button."
Mulrooney said she had watched out the store window as the robber got into the passenger side of a pickup that then drove away. She wrote down the licence plate number and called the RNC, the dispatch person staying on the phone with her until officers arrived.
The next morning, back at work, Mulrooney picked up a stack of The Telegram newspapers and looked at the picture on the front page. It was a photo of Wiseman, taken as he was arrested after a six-hour standoff with police at a home in Mount Pearl. Wiseman was shown sitting on a stretcher, being loaded into the back of an ambulance by a paramedic and a police officer, as firefighters worked to extinguish a fire that had broken out inside the house.
"The first thing I saw on the front page of the newspaper was a picture of that tattoo," Mulrooney said.
Wiseman has a tattoo of the four playing card suits in black above his right eyebrow.
Mulrooney acknowledged under cross-examination that she had not contacted police to tell them she believed there was a connection between the robber and the man in the news, but had mentioned it when she next spoke to an investigator a day or two later.
Wiseman has pleaded not guilty to charges related to robbing the Marie's Mini Mart store while armed with a weapon and wearing a disguise, as well as a charge of possessing a stolen Toyota Tacoma pickup.
He has entered a guilty plea to a charge of arson in connection with the standoff, and a hearing will be held in September to address that as well as a charge of possessing a dangerous weapon (a knife) connected with the same incident.
Over the past two days, the court has heard testimony from RNC officers working in different units, explaining their involvement in the events of March 13, 2018. After receiving the call about the armed robbery and determining the licence plate of the getaway truck matched that of a stolen pickup, police officers were assigned to try to track down the vehicle. An officer working in the RNC's surveillance unit saw it pass him on Park Avenue, noticing a male driver and a female passenger, appearing to be in their 30s.
The officer followed the truck in his unmarked vehicle to Jersey Avenue, radioing his sergeant, who was seconds behind him. He kept driving as the truck pulled into a residential driveway, while the other officer parked across the street, a few houses up. By that time, the driver was no longer in the truck.
"As I was watching, I noticed a female taking her time getting out of the passenger side of the pickup, wrapping a comforter or blanket around her and walking up the steps and going into the house," testified RNC Sgt. Krista Clarke.
She radioed street patrol officers, who arrived within minutes.
"The same female who had gone in the residence came back out, and there was some yelling, what do we want, it's not her truck, get it out of the driveway," Clarke told the court, describing the woman as "a little hard to deal with." The woman alternated between speaking to police and refusing to talk, eventually going back in the house and closing the door.
Clarke said she had received a phone call advising her Wiseman was inside the house. After informing her team, she directed the officers to maintain a 360-degree view of the home.
One of the team members told the court he was in his police cruiser, heading toward the street running behind Jersey Avenue, when he caught sight of a man dressed in black crouching down as he made his way through a backyard and away from the Jersey Avenue home. The man saw the police car, then turned back toward the home in question, ran inside and closed the door, the officer said.
Wiseman came to the front window of the home a few times, Clarke told the court, but ignored police officers' requests to come out.
The woman eventually left the home, and about half an hour later two other women did as well.
Wiseman and his girlfriend remained inside the home, Clarke said, interacting with police but not leaving.
"A lot of (the interactions) were yelling, and, 'Go away,' and, 'I'm not coming out,' 'Justin's not coming out.' (The woman) was getting more aggressive, at one point telling one of the officers, 'If anything happens to Justin I'm going to kill you and your mother and your wife,'" Clarke said.
At least three officers who testified said they had seen Wiseman at different points holding a knife to his throat while threatening self-harm. As the day progressed, Wiseman and the woman appeared increasingly intoxicated, officers testified.
"He was showing every intent that he was not coming out of the house until he was taken body and bones," Clarke said.
It was during the time Wiseman was inside the home that NTV received a call from a man claiming to be him, saying he wanted his story told.
"We used to be babies and how the f--- did I turn into the man that I am today?" the man said. "I turned into the man I am today because of my surroundings, because of my upbringing, because of the people that influenced me in my life. I don't like being like this. I'm not this person, but it seems like every f---ing corner that comes my way is a corner that wants to put me back behind bars."
A woman spoke into the phone in a slurred voice during the call.
"He is my boyfriend and I'm not going to leave him," she said, telling the reporter, "None of your business," when asked how the situation had started. "I'm just saying that he's not a bad person. He's not a mean person."
Multiple RNC officers told the court they had noticed smoke coming from the chimney of the home throughout the afternoon. At certain times the smoke had turned thick and black before going back to light and grey.
Early in the evening, the RNC's tactical response unit made the decision to barge into the house, after it was determined the residence was on fire. That's when Wiseman was arrested.
Forensic investigators who testified in court described what they had located inside the home once the fire had been extinguished: among the ashes and debris in the living room fireplace was the head and partially-burnt handle of a hammer, a long, charred knife and a burnt cellphone and charger.
The stolen truck was seized, and investigators found a pack of cigarettes and multiple cigarette package sleeves, cigarette butts and a knife, among other items.
Prosecutor Kathleen O'Reilly and defence lawyer Karen Rehner are set to present their closing submissions in the case to Justice Robert Stack on Friday.
Twitter: @tara_bradbury
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