BOYLE — More than two years after the start of his trial for second degree murder, arson and indignity to a body, Boyle resident Mario Bernier is still awaiting a verdict for the Dec. 18, 2019 incident that left his home a pile of ashes and his common-law partner, Melissa Lyne, dead inside its remains.
Bernier made his latest appearance in Edmonton’s Court of Kings Bench Friday, Mar. 21, his first appearance since the release of presiding Justice Shania Leonard’s latest ruling in the case.
On Feb. 19, 2025, Leonard ruled in favour of allowing statements Bernier made to two psychiatrists at the Regina General Hospital in the days following the fire at his Boyle mobile home admissible in trial, going against the defence’s position the statements should be subject to doctor-patient confidentiality.
Bernier was admitted to the Regina hospital on Dec. 19, 2019, hours after his trailer in Boyle had been found destroyed by fire, and was kept until Dec. 30. Over the course of his stay, Bernier made several statements to doctors, including that his common-law partner had left him to return to B.C. between one and two weeks earlier, and the relationship had been a source of stress in his life.
While Bernier’s defence team argued the statements should be confidential, had little value in finding the truth, and were unreliable, Leonard’s ruling sided with the Crown’s position that Bernier’s false statements “demonstrate an awareness of guilt that will assist the court in discovering the truth.”
“The evidence in the trial suggests that Ms. Lyne was in Boyle the day before the fire and that Mr. Bernier was at the mobile home. If they were both at the mobile home on the evening of December 19, one question that can be raised is why would Mr. Bernier have told the two psychiatrists that his wife had left a week or two ago?,” wrote Leonard in her ruling.
More admissible testimony
Leonard’s February ruling on the admissibility of Bernier’s statements to psychiatrists was the latest in a long line since the trial’s start in 2023.
Months earlier, in December 2024, Leonard made a similar ruling on whether to allow submissions from Lyne’s family and friends regarding her state of mind in the days and weeks leading up to her death.
After an analysis of statements from six individuals, including a former coworker at the Boyle Post Office, a neighbour she met frequently for coffee, and three family members, Leonard opted to allow the testimony from five of six suggested Crown witnesses.
Lyne’s family and friends all submitted she had expressed fear of Bernier and a desire to leave Boyle to return to B.C., where she was originally from.
“She was immensely afraid that Mario would hurt her and talked about it a lot,” read Leonard’s summary of neighbour Leanna Carr’s statement. “She felt threatened and feared for her life. Melissa Lyne talked about it every time she and Leanne Carr had coffee. Melissa Lyne was very afraid Mario would hurt her or worse.”
The testimony from Lyne’s family and friends cannot be used as evidence of violence or abuse from Bernier, but only as evidence of Lyne’s state of mind before her death and her intention to leave the relationship and the community.
Charter challenge
In a second December 2024 ruling, Leonard determined that Bernier’s Charter Rights to a reasonable expectation of privacy had been infringed upon by the collection of ash samples from the remains of his mobile home in the hours following the Dec. 18, 2019 fire.
In the early morning hours of Dec. 19, RCMP arrived to Bernier’s home in the Aspen Grove Trailer Park in Boyle, where firefighters were present. At the time the first police officers arrived, the house was still on fire, but most walls and half the floor had collapsed.
Officers securing the scene noticed a crow returning to possible animal remains within the remains of the house, remains an on-scene fire consultant determined to be human after further investigation.
In order to preserve the body, officers determined it must be moved. Despite having no warrants to enter the property, officers decided to employ the use of a third-party sniffer dog to locate any potential evidence of accelerant present in the ashes, as it would likely be disturbed during the removal of the body.
Bernier’s defence team argued that without warrants, the collection of ash samples taken from the mobile home violated Bernier’s rights to reasonable privacy in his home, a sentiment Leonard agreed with.
“The search violated Mr. Bernier’s Charter rights, but not in a particularly instrusive way. The expectation of privacy in Mr. Bernier’s mobile home was reduced in the aftermath of the fire,” wrote Leonard. “With an unpleasant climate and animals looking to gnaw on the corpse, it was necessary to act quickly.”
Despite the Charter infringements, Leonard ruled to allow the evidence collected as admissible in trial,
“The seized ash samples are physical evidence that is reliable and relevant to Crown prosecutions of serious offenses.”
Jordan application
In October 2023, eight months after the trial had started and five months before it was scheduled to be concluded in March 2024, Leonard filed her ruling on a Jordan application submitted by Bernier’s defence counsel, Kenneth Sockett, on the basis the proceedings had infringed on his clients right to trial within a reasonable time.
Bernier was officially charged for the murder of Lyne in September 2020, and according to the Jordan framework, the acceptable period of delay between charge and conclusion for superior court is 30 months. If the trial had ended in March 2024 as scheduled, the proceedings would have taken 42 months.
According to the defense, the Crown’s changes to the witness list and lack of proper time estimation for the trial from the outset had infringed on his client’s rights. But the Crown argued defence delays and a last-minute language change made for exceptional circumstances.
In her ruling, Leonard sided with the Crown, detailing months of Crown correspondence that received no reply from the defence and further scheduling issues for the defence after an additional week of trial time was lost due to adjournment.
“It is clear to me that during the period between July 11, 2022 and November 24, defence counsel were not concerned with ensuring that Mr. Bernier’s rights under Section 11(B) were protected,” wrote Leonard.
Between July and October of 2022, the court and Crown were expecting a request for a trial in Bernier’s first language, French — a change Leonard noted can more than double trial time to account for constant translation.
According to the timeline laid out in Leonard’s ruling, Bernier’s defense didn’t indicate the language of preference until October 2022, despite the defendant having been notified of his right to a French trial after being charged in September 2020.
“This late change in language is another example of the complacency of the defense,” wrote Leonard. “After the change in language of the trial, the Crown continued to try to obtain alternative dates, with little cooperation from the defence.”
Bernier’s next appearance in Edmonton’s Court of King’s Bench is scheduled for June 19 at 9 a.m.
