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  Travis Vader walks with his lawyer, Brian Beresh, following the first day of the first-degree murder trial at the Edmonton Law Courts on March 8.

  BRYAN YOUNG/St. Albert Gazette

With tears in her eyes, Trudy Marie Holder told an Edmonton courtoom Thursday about the close relationship she had with her mother, Marie McCann.

"My mom was my best friend, so we just talked about everything. Whatever was going on," she said during the murder trial of Travis Vader, the man accused of killing both her mother and father, Lyle McCann, in 2010. The bodies of the retired St. Albert couple have never been found though their burned out recreational vehicle and their SUV were recovered that summer.

Speaking in a quiet voice, Holder presented a detailed account of a stable family that enjoyed its time together.

Answering questions by Crown prosecutor Ashley Finlayson, she spoke of her two older brothers, Bret and Lance, and the home in St. Albert where the family had lived since she was five years old.

Holder described her father as a former long-haul trucker. He retired at age 75, just a few years before the couple disappeared. Her mother, Marie, sometimes worked outside the house, but Holder said mostly she worked as a homemaker.

The family went on camping vacations every summer, with a trailer hauled behind the family car. This continued into her adult life, although when she was in her twenties when her parents swapped the car and trailer for an RV towing a car, and Holder would typically fly to meet them rather than joining them for the long drives.

Holder described her father, who did almost all the driving, as being a cautious and attentive driver who was meticulous in keeping his vehicles cleaned and maintained.

"Even with his truck, after he got off the road he would clean it right away or the very next morning," she said.

The family rarely ate out on trips, instead buying groceries and eating picnic-style.

On the long drives, Holder said her father didn't like to stop very often at all.

"There was always kind of friction about that," she said. "We were all tired, and kept passing places after we'd driven for hours and hours."

The last time Holder saw her parents was on Mother's Day 2010 in Red Deer, and she said they seemed to be in good health.

"I didn't treat them like 77- to 78-year-old people," she said. "They were my mom and dad."

She said they had made plans to meet July 10 at the Abbotsford airport to go on a two-week camping trip with Holder and her daughter, and when they failed to show up she knew something was wrong.

"If they said they were going to be somewhere, they were there," she said.

Holder described several phone conversations with her mother and father prior to their trip, and described her father's tone as "curt," and not being himself.

One phone call shortly after Father's Day had to do with a gift she had sent him, a seat for a fishing boat. She had mistakenly ordered and sent only the frame and not the seat itself.

"It was different than any phone call I had ever had," she said. "I concluded they were upset with me and we needed to discuss something."

Holder said a phone call she had with her father on the morning of July 3 had a similar tone, and confirmed that was the last time she ever spoke to him.

Tuesday

Sgt. Michael Donnelly was the first witness to take the stand to open the trial on Tuesday. His role was to establish the continuity of evidence.

Stewart and Donnelly went through Exhibit 1, a binder full of about 300 photos, establishing what the photographs depicted.

These photos include surveillance footage of the McCanns, photos of the McCanns' burned-out RV and the campground where it was found, their Hyundai Tucson SUV and the scene where it was found, items found in the SUV, a private property where material from the SUV was found, and a private residence police searched following Vader's arrest.

The items depicted include the beer can the Crown says had Vader's DNA on it, the can of food that had Marie McCann's blood spatters, and Lyle McCann's hats.

Once the photographs were identified, Stewart began to establish timelines for Donnelly's involvement in the investigation.

He and a team of forensic investigators visited the Superior Towing yard to see the burned motorhome frame on July 12, then went to the Edson dump to see debris from the motorhome, and to the Minnow Lake campground where the motorhome had been found.

The team returned to those sites to conduct further searches on July 13 and 14.

On July 16, Donnelly went to the site of the McCann's SUV, which he described as being very dirty, and driven "fairly hard into the trees." He said it appeared to have been there for a few days.

That same day he visited a property near Samson Road, where several items were sized from an area with long grass that appeared to have been trampled down by vehicles. The items include a floor mat from a vehicle, a Boxer beer case, and a city map of St. Albert.

On July 18, Donnelly further examined the SUV in Edmonton and found several items including food cans, a beer can, clothing and upholstery, which he said contained blood and DNA evidence.

On July 21, he went to another residence in the Edson area and took swabs from a Nissan SUV parked in the driveway.

A month later, on Aug. 23, Donnelly revisted evidence taken from the Minnow Lake scene, including a plaster cast of a footprint he had made July 11. He said he visited the local fire department to compare the cast to what firefighters may have been wearing on scene.

In one noteworthy exchange, defence lawyer Brian Beresh objected to Stewart's repeatedly asking Donnelly about identifying a cast, which Donnelly repeatedly described as not being of a quality to make any positive identification, saying it was like "beating a dead horse."

"I think he was clear in his answer," Beresh said.

Another residence was searched Sept. 7, resulting in more fingerprint evidence, and Donnelly said over the next several weeks he revisited the evidence he had collected on several occasions.

The day ended before Donnelly had finished testifying, and he is expected to return later in the trial.

Outside the courthouse Tuesday afternoon, Beresh and Vader declined to comment on the trial.

"You'll hear it. You'll see it unfold," he said.

Thursday

Thursday marked the second day of proceedings after the trial began Tuesday. The hearing was postponed Wednesday to accommodate Beresh's schedule.

Dr. Owen Beattie, professor emeritus of anthropology from the University of Alberta, testified about his investigation into the possibility of human remains in the material collected from the burned-out motorhome found at the Minnow Lake campground.

He said he and two graduate students inspected a "dumpster" full of material at the RCMP forensic lab in Edmonton on Aug. 9, 2010.

"We determined there was not the presence of human remains," he told the court.

Upon Crown prosecutor Jim Stewart's questioning, he also said it was extremely unlikely, based on his experience, that any remains had been destroyed by fire or had been removed by any scavenging animals.

"If there were human remains in that environment, I would expect there would be something in that environment that would be identifiable," Beattie said.

That point was reinforced when Stewart asked Beattie about a project he's currently working on for the Cypriot government, which involves excavating and identifying remains of Greek commandos from an airplane shot down in 1974. Those remains were buried for more than a decade, yet some remains have been found and identified.

In his cross-examination, Beresh said he appreciated Beattie's testimony.

"Your evidence is very important to the defence," he said.

He confirmed with Beattie that following a fire, evidence of bodily fluids would not likely be present.

Beresh also asked if it would be impossible for remains to turn to dust in a fire.

"Nothing is impossible," Beattie replied.

Finally, Beresh asked Beattie if he knew that the debris from the motorhome had sat uncovered in a landfill before being examined. Beattie said he was "not fully" aware until he came to court.

Beresh also asked whether Beattie's advice or expectation would be that any such material would be promptly covered and secured.

"That would be my expectation," Beattie said.

"Mine too," Beresh replied. "No further questions."