Dean Penney denies involvement in Jennifer Hillier-Penney’s disappearance
NL man testifies at his murder trial that he made up the story he told Mr. Big about Jennifer Hillier-Penney’s death
“Did you have anything to do with the disappearance of your wife?” lawyer Mark Gruchy asked.
The question that everyone has been anticipating was answered with a simple “No, I did not,” by Dean Penney on Tuesday, May 12.
Penney is on trial in the Supreme Court of Newfoundland and Labrador in Corner Brook for the first-degree murder of his estranged wife, Jennifer Hillier-Penney.
It’s alleged he killed her on Nov. 30, 2016. Her body has never been found.
Penney’s arrest in December 2023 came at the end of a nearly four-year RCMP undercover investigation known as a Mr. Big operation. He admitted to killing Hillier-Penney and dumping her body in the ocean to an undercover RCMP officer portraying the boss of a fictitious criminal organization, identified in the court as UC Rudy.
Gruchy led into his final question by acknowledging it had been a difficult few days for Penney, who took the stand in his own defense on Thursday, May 8.
In his testimony, Penney repeatedly said he was innocent.
He said the confession was made out of fear for his life and because he desperately needed the money that a job with the organization would provide him.
Gruchy resumed his questioning of Penney by returning to the memo UC Rudy presented to him during their first interview on Nov. 30, 2016 — exactly seven years after Jennifer Hillier-Penney was last seen.
The memo written by UC Rudy contains documents and information supposedly obtained from the RCMP about the investigation into Hillier-Penney’s disappearance.
It also included the RCMP’s plans to arrest Penney and said that a comprehensive press conference had already been planned that would garner national and international interest.
Gruchy asked Penney how he felt at the prospect of that national and international press coverage.
Penney said he felt a lot of fear because he wasn’t guilty of anything, and to have that thrown at him was pretty scary.
“I’m innocent of the charges,” he said, and added, “It was hard to fathom they would do something like that to me.”
Penney told UC Rudy that he and Hillier-Penney had a confrontation that night that got heated. She went to slap him and he pushed her. He said she tripped and fell down the stairs in the garage at the home they once shared on Husky Drive in St. Anthony.
He said she hit her head on a gun safe, and after cleaning up the scene, he dumped her body in the ocean near his cabin in Hare Bay.
That first interview took place on the crime boss’s yacht in Vancouver, the same boat that Penney thought he was in the running to captain.
Second interview
On Dec. 8, 2023, UC Rudy holds a second interview with Penney at a covert warehouse in Edmonton.
Penney wasn’t expecting it to happen, he said.
UC Rudy told him there were things about his story that did not make sense. He said UC Joe, his second in command, said there was no way someone took a tumble like Penney described and died.
UC Rudy told Penney to tell him, “what actually f-ing happened.”
On Tuesday, Gruchy asked Penney how he felt having UC Rudy talking to him like that.
“I was basically scared to death,” Penney responds.
He said he was trying to spin a lie to get himself out of the situation and was in a hard spot. He said he thought they were catching up on the story he was telling them and that he couldn’t remember a lot of the stuff he’d said in the first interview.
It was a fabricated story, he told the court, and said again that he feared UC Rudy.
“I figured he was going to f-ing make away with me,” said Penney.
In the second interview, Penney told UC Rudy that after Hillier-Penney fell, he hit her on the head three times with a mallet that was on the floor.
UC Rudy challenged him on the location of the mallet, and Penney said that every time UC Rudy came up with something, he tried to come up with something else to make it believable.
As UC Rudy continued to challenge him, Penney said he was scared to death and not sure of what was coming next, so he just tried to keep explaining it.
He said he just wanted out of that situation and out of that room.
Gruchy then asked Penney about the comments that UC Rudy made about checking the weather on the night Hillier-Penney disappeared, as he questioned him about how Penney could have managed to take his boat out.Article content
Penney told UC Rudy in the interview that it was rough, and he had used wood in the boat to create a platform for Hillier-Penney’s body. He said he just had to roll it into the water.
He told the jury he was trying to get him to believe his story.
Gruchy asked Penney if his second statement to UC Rudy was a lie.
“A lie?” he responded in a questioning tone.
Gruchy repeated the question, and Penney responded, “Yes.”
She’s going to disappear: Penney
Gruchy turned his questioning to other evidence that the jury heard early in the trial.
Morley Hillier, who is no relation to Hillier-Penney, testified that he’d run into Penney in the parking lot of the Scotiabank in St. Anthony around Nov. 7, 2016. Morley Hillier said Penney told him Hillier-Penney was going to disappear.
Penney said he’d known Morley Hillier for a long time but did not have a relationship with him.
Asked if he ever had a conflict with him, Penney launched into a long narrative about Morley Hillier fixing a bearing on his snowmobile at Hillier-Penney’s request and how he was also going to fix a spring on a garage door while they lived in Great Brehat.
The Crown objected to the comments and the jury was excused while the lawyers addressed Justice Vikas Khaladkar.
When the jury returns, Khaladkar explained that Penney’s evidence contains hearsay of what other people said, but is accepted by him — not for the truth of what was said, but the narrative of what happened.
Penney continued his explanation that Morley Hillier went to their home when no one was there to fix the garage door. He said Hillier-Penney collected wine and came home to find six bottles missing, along with a new pair of Choko mitts and some rope.
Penney said he knew Morley Hillier was involved in taking the items.
The alleged theft occurred sometime in either 2011 or 2012, and Penney said when he went to his uncle’s home a few weeks later, Morley Hillier was there.
Morley Hillier accused him of stealing a lantern, and Penney then accused him of stealing the wine, mitts and rope.
Things got heated and they got into an argument and “a bit of a fist fight,” said Penney.
Penney said he hit Morley Hillier a few times. They never spoke or associated with one another after that.
Penney told the jury that Morley Hillier’s evidence was not true and that he did not tell him that Hillier-Penney would disappear.
Gruchy ended his direct examination after asking Penney if he had anything to do with Hillier-Penney’s disappearance.
Still to come
The Crown will cross-examine him when the trial resumes on Wednesday, May 13.The jury will then be excused, and the Crown and defence will meet with Khaladkar to discuss his charge to the jury.
The jury will return on Tuesday, May 19, and closing submissions will be heard that day.
Khaladkar will give his charge to the jury on Wednesday, May 20, after which they’ll begin deliberations.
