ACORN TRIAL - Case of 'confession' outlined by prosecution

Two men charged with the first-degree murder of a runaway teenage girl from Abbotsford confessed key details of the crime on tape to a “crime boss,” during an elaborate police undercover operation, jurors in Chillwack Supreme Court heard Monday.

On the opening day of their trial, Jesse (Blue) West, and his son Dustin (Blue) Robert Moir both pleaded not guilty to the murder of 14-year-old Chelsey Acorn, whose body was found in a shallow grave outside of Hope in April 2006.

Acorn, under the care of the Ministry of Children and Family Development, went missing from an Abbotsford-area group home in June 2005.

Crown prosecutor John Hempstead told jurors in his opening statements that Acorn’s body was discovered when hikers near the Carolin Mines exit off the Coquihalla Highway discovered human bones and contacted police.

Investigators in the case were careful to hold back key evidence that only the young girl’s killers would know, including the fact that Acorn was not clothed when buried, and her skull was crushed above her left eye socket.

Additionally, her grave had to be cut and dug through thick tree roots.

An autopsy showed that although the body was in a state of advanced decomposition, the young victim had died from blunt force trauma to head and face.

Investigators subsequently learned Acorn was a youth at risk, engaging in sexual relationships with older men and using drugs, Hempstead told the court.

Officers talked to the young girl’s social workers and friends, and examined her cell phone, and as a result, the names of West and his son surfaced.

An undercover officer initiated a relationship with Moir in the summer of 2006, leading him to believe he had a “lucrative future” within a criminal organization.

Moir, like his father, who later became subject to a similar sting, would eventually confess key details to a crime boss on tape, the Crown prosecutor said.

Both men said the trio had travelled in a car to Merritt before returning south towards Hope to the area where Acorn was killed.

Both told the boss that West strangled Acorn before she was put naked in the grave and her head crushed by a rock.

Although some details provided by both men differed, both had key information about Acorn’s death, said Hempstead.

The pair were arrested in a final meeting with the undercover officers in March 2007.

The trial will continue today (Tuesday) with Crown calling forensic officers to describe the site where Acorn’s body was discovered.