WARNING: Graphic content

NEW WESTMINSTER - Did "The Entity" make him do it?

Surrey resident Ernest Allan Hosack, 40, is being tried this week in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster for second-degree murder in connection with the gruesome death of his roommate Richard Falardeau, 54, in 2008.

Part of Falardeau's body was found inside a black suitcase inside the attic apartment the men shared in Newton in the summer of 2008. During opening statements in court on Monday, Crown prosecutor Brad Kielmann told Justice Terry Schultes that the victim's thumbs, anus, scrotum and testes were found in plastic bags in the refrigerator's freezer. Falardeau's skull, with some hair and part of the spine still attached, was found three months later, lying in marshy tall grass in a hollow off a pathway along the Hydro right-of-way, near 92nd Avenue and King George Boulevard.

The court heard Falardeau met Hosack at a local coffee shop in June 2008, and Hosack moved into the bungalow Falardeau was renting at 14358 88th Ave. Later that summer, Falardeau's brother reported him missing, leading to the terrible discovery on Aug. 21, 2008, in the upstairs suite.

Cpl. Michael Dubyk, who was a forensic identification officer with the Surrey RCMP at the time, said police were on scene in the hot, stuffy suite for four days despite the "great abundance of flies" and "very overwhelming" odor. He testified that he took hundreds of photos but found no evidence a large amount of blood had been spilled in the attic.

Cpl. Curtis Bosnell, who was with the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team at the time, said some of the remains were discovered inside a Kraft marshmallow bag inside the freezer, in the cluttered, messy suite.

He said there were several hundred if not thousands of flies, alive and dead, inside the place.

"They were throughout the unit."

After getting out of jail on another matter, Hosack was promptly arrested and taken to the Langley RCMP detachment.

Crown prosecutor Christopher McPherson said, outside court, that Hosack expressed "grandiose delusions" of ways to save the earth, nuclear cutting, and terraforming the earth during a chilling 12-hour interview with Mounties. Hosack was "up and down" during the interview, at times calm, at times angry, and he spoke of "The Entity."

When the officers asked Hosack if they could speak with this entity, McPherson said, his voice grew deeper and said it was his deceased granddad Ernie goochie goochie coo. The voice said Falardeau died quickly, and characterized it as murder. This voice told the officers he cut off the victim's thumbs and genitals "and froze them in hell" because Falardeau had been messing with some of his belongings "for ill will."

The Crown expects to finish its case by Thursday, after hearing from police officers, an entomologist, Falardeau's landlord and a tenant who lived on a different floor.

Dressed in a white dress shirt with light blue stripes, Hosack sat in the prisoner's box, sipping water from a little paper cup and flipping through a binder of exhibit photos, while the police officers testified on Monday.

tzytaruk@thenownewspaper.com