9 years. 225 court exhibits. One judge’s ruling looms in dog breeder murder retrial

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St. THOMAS – The Crown’s case against former high-flying field dog breeder and hair stylist Boris Panovski is like a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle of circumstantial evidence.

In her closing argument to Superior Court Justice Marc Garson, assistant Crown attorney Elizabeth Brown said all those pieces from before, during and after the shooting of Toronto area businessperson Donato Frigo, 70, and his wife fit together to create an unmistakable picture of Panovski, 80, as the killer.

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“He is the one, as the Crown respectfully submits, who shot and killed Don Frigo and shot Eva Willer Frigo,” she said on Friday.

It’s been nine years, 10 months and six days since Frigo was shot and killed while he and his wife were on horseback at the Hullett provincial wildlife area north of Clinton in Huron County. Now all that is left to be heard at the marathon retrial is Garson’s decision, which is slated to be delivered next month.

Panovski, of Scarborough, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder of Frigo and not guilty to attempted murder Willer Frigo, 56, at the judge-alone trial that has lasted longer than Panovski’s first trial, which was heard by a jury in Goderich in 2018.

He successfully appealed his convictions after the first trial in 2021 and a new trial was ordered and moved to St. Thomas.

Defence lawyer Margaret Barnes was able to give her closing address on Thursday, but only after she told Garson she and her client were having disagreements about the case. After resolving their issues, Barnes’s closing focused primarily on the defence theory that the Ontario Provincial Police had “tunnel vision” about Panovski, ignoring key evidence and pursuing him as a suspect without following other leads.

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But in her closing, Brown said police had no suspects on Sept. 13, 2014 after the Frigos were shot. They were looking for someone who knew the Hullett wildlife area, knew the annual field dog trials were there that weekend and knew the Frigos would be there.

“This was an actual whodunit,” she said. “When they followed the evidence, all of it led to Mr. Panovski.”

Panovski had a deep-seated grudge against Frigo since 2005, after being arrested at a prestigious field-dog training event in Waynesboro, GA. The incident led Panovski to be shunned by the close-knit field dog world.

Until that moment, Panovski’s career was about to take off, having won two national championships with dogs owned by wine magnate Gabe Magnotta. He had sold a dog that would become a champion, then named Panovski Silver, to Frigo, but after Panovski’s arrest, the name was changed to Belfield Silver.

Brown said the evidence showed Panovski blamed Frigo for his loss of reputation. In the years following the arrest, Panovski’s marriage would end, causing a family rift, he declared bankruptcy and never was able to return to the dog-training profession.

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Brown wove together the “mountain” of evidence ranging from eye-witness accounts, plus cellphone and computer records, photographs, and forensic evidence to tie together her case. There have been 225 court exhibits submitted.

She reminded Garson Panovski had told someone in the field-dog community he harboured the grudge against Frigo and his dog trainer and “there will come a day.”

Plans around that day seemed to start forming in the months before Frigo’s death. Panovski asked his grandson where he could get a gun. He had his 20-gauge shotgun fixed. He tinted the windows of his Toyota Corolla and changed the licence plates, she said.

Witnesses saw his Jeep driving in the area of the Frigo farm in Caledon in the days before the shooting. There was evidence of him researching the dog trials at Hullett on his computer. He told his girlfriend he was going out to hunt on the day of the homicide.

Someone fitting his description was seen near the conservation area in the hours leading up to Frigo’s death. A car matching the description of his was seen in a parking lot near where the Frigos were shot.

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Willer Frigo was unable to identify Panovski as the shooter, but Brown reminded Garson her observations were made during “fast-moving moments of chaos” when she saw her husband shot, she was shot, she fled on her horse, then returned to see her husband on the ground as a car rolled up and a person shot him in the head again.

Cellphone records showed Panovski’s phone pinged off a tower near Fergus more than an hour after the shooting and it appeared it was travelling east. Once back in Scarborough, he dropped by his girlfriend’s apartment building and told her to say he was there if anyone asked.

He filled the car with gas twice that day, once earlier and then later after he was home and had a car wash.

Two days after the shooting, he cancelled his life, home and auto insurance and his gym membership, bought new luggage, withdrew a substantial amount of money from the bank and grabbed a one-way ticket to his native Macedonia – where he hadn’t visited for 30 years – all without telling anyone his plans.

His girlfriend testified she only found out just before they went to the airport and Panovski departed. His apartment was left in disarray, and, Brown said, there was no evidence he was sick, as the defence had suggested.

This was Panovski “distancing from the evidence,” she said.

“The only reasonable inference that can be taken from that evidence is that Mr. Panovski is identified as the killer in this case and he should be convicted,” Brown said.

Garson reserved his decision until Aug. 16.

jsims@postmedia.com

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