A Tim Hortons manager had tears in her eyes at a Burnaby murder trial this week as she watched security video of a young teen leaving her restaurant on the evening of July 18, 2017 and turning towards Central Park.
The teen’s lifeless body would be found in the park a few hours later.
The manager, Gladys Paling, was in Vancouver Supreme Court Tuesday to testify at the trial of Ibrahim Ali, who is accused of first degree murder in the girl’s death.
Ali has pleaded not guilty.
The girl cannot be identified because of a publication ban.
As manager of the Station Square Tim Hortons in Metrotown, it was Paling’s job to download the store’s CCTV video for police investigators, according to her testimony.
She said she got the request within days of hearing the girl had been found dead in the park.
For much of Paling’s time in the witness stand, the court watched as some of the girl’s final moments unfolded in an hour-and-a-half-long video clip.
The footage shows the girl, wearing jean shorts, a black t-shirt and black runners, enter the restaurant at about 6 p.m., order food and an iced capp and then sit down at a table near the door.
The girl sits alone, eating and looking at her phone, while shadows lengthen outside the windows beside her.
Paling testified the coffee shop had free wifi for customers.
Earlier in the trial, the jury had heard the internet connection at the Central Park apartment the girl shared with her mother was down, and her mother was visiting a family friend in Langley that night.
Before the video ends, the girl discards her garbage and recycling, walks out the door at about 7:30 p.m. and turns right.
“Is that towards the direction of McKay Avenue and towards the direction of Central Park?” Crown prosecutor Daniel Porte asked.
“Yes,” Paling said.
The Crown's theory is that Ali and the girl were strangers to one another and that he attacked her on a trail in Central Park, dragged her into the forest and strangled her to death while sexually assaulting her.
The defence has not outlined its theory but has suggested the killer and whoever had sex with the young teen — "either forced sex or sex" — are not the same people.
Follow Cornelia Naylor on Twitter @CorNaylor
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