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By Joe Fries
There came a point during his prolonged beating and torture that Brent Doyle wondered if he was going to escape the ordeal alive.
He testified in Kelowna provincial court Friday at the trial of James Merkley. Merkley is one of three people facing charges arising from the alleged incident on Feb. 6, 2009, in a room at the Teddy Bear Lodge in Lake Country. Merkley is charged along with Stuart Davis with aggravated assault, extortion, uttering threats, unlawful confinement and theft over $5,000. Davis was only taken into police custody on Thursday.
Doyle, 27, opened by admitting that he had driven Davis, whom he alleged was a Vernon drug dealer, around that city in exchange for crack cocaine. The two apparently had a falling out that ended with Doyle reporting his truck had been stolen by an associate of Davis.
Around 1 a.m. on Feb. 6, Doyle said he drove his 1997 Ford F-150 truck to Okanagan Landing and collected Merkley. The pair stopped at a nearby residence to pick up drugs before Merkley instructed his driver to head towards Kelowna, ostensibly to pick up more drugs.
Doyle said he knew something was afoot and “had a feeling” the duo was actually bound for the Teddy Bear Lodge where Davis was staying, and Merkley later instructed him to head there.
“That’s when I got scared,” Doyle said.
Doyle then told court he arrived with Merkley at the motel room around 3 a.m. He said the trio chatted for about 15 minutes before Davis grabbed a large kitchen knife and began playing with it. Davis then allegedly struck Doyle on the top of his head with the wooden knife handle.
“Instantly, my skin broke open and a river of blood came down the side of me,” Doyle recalled.
He said he was then tied to a chair and his attackers proceeded to beat him for the next three hours, striking him about the head and face with a frying pan, fists and a coffee mug. At some point, a pillowcase was placed over his head and Doyle, who was forced to strip to his underwear, had his own belt tightened around his neck.
“They’d punch me, sit down for awhile and tell me what they were going to do to me,” Doyle explained, adding at one point there was talk of burning his feet.
He went on to tell the court that he had salt poured onto his wounds and cologne sprayed into his eyes, mouth and cuts.
Doyle said his chair was later tipped over and Merkley then kicked and stomped him another eight to 10 times.
“Basically, I didn’t know if I’d be leaving that hotel room that night.”
In between, the two attackers apparently called a woman and told her to bring the paperwork necessary to transfer ownership of Doyle’s truck to one of them. The woman, Shelley Tubbs, arrived around between 7 and 8 a.m. and Doyle was soon forced to sign the document, he said.
Then he got the men interested in a new plan. Doyle said he told them he had $726 in his bank account that Davis could have, but he’d need to go to a Royal Bank branch in Vernon to get it.
“I needed to get myself in a public place. I thought if I could do that, I could get away,” explained Doyle.
Court broke for the day before Doyle could detail the rest of his ordeal.
Earlier in the day, however, a surveillance video from the bank showed Doyle and Davis walking into the bank’s ATM area. Doyle was able to escape by slipping through another set of doors and into the main bank area, where he asked an employee to call for help.
Four RCMP officers also testified and described some of the items seized from the Teddy Bear Lodge, most of which appeared to be blood-stained.
One of the officers, Cpl. Mike Loerke of the Lake Country detachment, told of what he presumed to be a “mound” of coagulated blood, about four inches in diameter and three-quarters of an inch deep, found on the floor in the motel room.
“Over time, it had been allowed to build up,” he explained.
Another officer told court that fingerprints found in the room tied Stuart and Merkley to the scene.
In his cross-examination, defence counsel William Mastop asked two police witnesses if the victim appeared to be under the influence on crack cocaine during his contact with them; neither thought Doyle was on drugs.
Mastop also focused on the apparent absence of any broken glass in the roster of evidence.
The parties will reconvene July 13 to set a date for continuation of the trial, which is expected to take at least another day.
Davis is scheduled to appear in Kelowna provincial court July 9 for a bail hearing on the Doyle matter and one other. Tubbs, who is still at large, is charged with extortion, unlawful confinement and theft over $5,000.
joe@kelowna.com/(250) 575-4303
Tags: extortion, james merkley, RCMP, torture, william mastop
