Woman stabbed to death in 'tortured love' case, accuser on trial over ex-boyfriend's death

Hours before she was due to go to court to fight for more custody of her son, Jessica Newman was stabbed 75 times in a case of “tortured love,” Calgary prosecutor Kevin Rublets told jurors in the second-degree murder trial.

The trial began Monday morning with opening statements from prosecutor Shane Parker. Parker outlined the evidence the Crown plans to present during the three-week trial.

Newman and Rublets had an on-again, off-again relationship and had a child together. They were seeing other people at the time of her death, but between December 2014 and March 2015 exchanged messages about “romance, sex and love”.

“This is a crime of passion,” Parker said.

“Intimate and Vulnerable”

On March 10, 2015 — the last day Newman was seen alive — Rublets picked him up after work. She told police that the two had coffee and dropped her off at home around 9:30 p.m

But Parker says the evidence tells a different story.

The Crown's theory is that Newman sat undressed in the front seat of Rublets' van — when her body was found, Newman's black lace dress was pulled up to her waist — suggesting the killing was spontaneous but not premeditated.

“The fact that she was undressed indicates that the murder occurred at a time when she was intimate and vulnerable,” Parker said.

Jurors heard Calgary police responded to Rublets multiple times and noted changes in his version of events.

Newman's DNA in the Rubletz machine

At one point, he told police he could get his cell phone, but later said he lost it.

After Newman's body was found in a ditch near Balzac in May 2015, Rublets' grandmother, mother and stepfather took the van to the wreckage, but police were able to catch it and run tests.

A police forensics expert testifies that there was a “bleeding incident” in Rublets' van and that Newman's DNA was found on the front passenger seat. Parker told jurors the van showed evidence of “poor cleaning.”

The couple was scheduled to appear in court on March 11, 2015. Newman was excited to spend more time with her son and changed her schedule so she could attend. Newman never came, but Rublets did.

Parker said the case was a “who-knows-what classic.”

Newman is “fighting” for custody.

Newman's ex-boyfriend, Ryan Chamberlain, is the first witness for the prosecution. He met Newman twice; In 2008 and again when he was killed.

“He was good to everybody,” Chamberlain said. “She was just bubbly, happy, open.”

Chamberlain Newman said she is “fighting for 50 percent custody” of her youngest son and has changed her life to be a better mother to her sons.

The three-week jury trial will be presided over by Justice of the Queen's Court Glen Poelman. Rublets will be defended by defenders Brendan Miller and Joshua Sutherland.

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