SURREY – After a trial, an appeal, and yet another trial, it's case closed.
The Crown has decided not to appeal Katherine Quinn's acquittal of second-degree murder in the beating death of 16-year-old Matthew Martins.
"There's just no grounds for it," Crown spokesman Robin Baird told the Now on Wednesday. "There's not going to be an appeal."
The Surrey mother of three was accused of urging her boyfriend Robert Forslund to kill the boy at the Surrey Central SkyTrain station on July 2, 2005 but was found not guilty of the charge last month following an emotionally charged trial at B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.
Forslund is serving a life sentence for slashing the teen's throat with a beer bottle and stomping him to death. He hunted the boy down after Martins cut Quinn, 27, with a penknife to escape from her after she'd mugged him for his gold chain while he was walking by the couple's house in Whalley.
This was Quinn's second trial on the matter. She had been convicted of second-degree after the first trial, but the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned that verdict in 2007, finding no evidence to support the Crown's allegation she supplied Forslund with the beer bottle used to slash Martins' throat.
Justice Wendy Baker delivered the final verdict on May 31 after reading her 59-page reasons for judgment.
The Crown's case had centred on the testimony of witnesses who said they heard Quinn tell Forslund, "If you love me, you'll kill him," and other similar statements. But Baker said she had a reasonable doubt as to Quinn's guilt because she could not rely on the accuracy and reliability of the witnesses' recollections because of inconsistencies in their testimony.
Sandra Martins-Toner, Matthew's mom, said she is "a little discouraged" and "very, very sad" with the decision not to appeal Quinn's acquittal, but she seemed to be accepting it with grace.
"There was just no error in law," she conceded. "There's nothing we can do.
"We're trying to move forward with Mattie in our hearts," she said. "Nothing's every going to bring Mattie back – nothing's going to bring Matthew back to me."
Friday marks the fifth anniversary of his murder.
tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com
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