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Never needed a gun the first 24 years of her life.


Accused murderer denies sexually assaulting Ross

This story contains disturbing details

Last Updated: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 | 7:34 PM ET

CBC News

Accused killer Daniel Sylvester says he never sexually assaulted Alicia
Ross, although he did masturbate after disposing of her body, jurors heard
Tuesday.

Sylvester, 33, made the revelation during a taped interview with police
shortly after Ross, a 25-year-old from Markham, Ont., was killed on Aug. 17,
2005. The tape was played for the jury of eight women and four men in a
Newmarket, Ont., courtroom.

On the recording, a police officer asks Sylvester if a forensic analysis
would turn up traces of semen on the garbage bag of bloody clothes he dumped
in a wooded area. The bag contained some of Ross's clothes, as well as
Sylvester's.

Sylvester said semen would likely be found.

He told the officer that after he killed Ross and disposed of her body, he
felt so nervous and upset, that he calmed himself down by masturbating. He
wiped himself on a piece of clothing, which he threw into the bag of
clothes.

"I remember the panic was starting to set in again," Sylvester said on the
tape. "I didn't have any means of alleviating the panic."

On the tape, he also discusses his relationship with Ross, his next-door
neighbour. He said he never talked to her before he killed her and he didn't
even know her last name.

He said he barely noticed her and never thought about whether she was
attractive or not.

Sylvester has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder. He has admitted to
causing Ross's death, but has denied it was murder.

Sylvester said in a seperate police inteview, played for the jury Thursday,
that on the day Ross died, he encountered her on the grassy path between
their homes and she swore at him and called him a loser. Ross said he then
slapped her, pinned her down and banged her head on the ground until she
stopped breathing.

He said he put her body in the trunk of his mother's car and disposed of it
in Manilla, about 45 kilometres northeast of Markham. He dumped the clothes
on his way home from Manilla.

Ross's boyfriend Sean Hine was initially considered a person of interest in
Ross's disappearance, until Sylvester surrendered to police five weeks
later.

Sylvester tried to plead guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter, but the
Crown denied his request.



Will never need a gun ever again.