Jury deliberations will soon begin in the first-degree murder trial for a 29-year-old man accused of killing two people in New Brunswick in 2019.

Justice Cameron Gunn is delivering his final instructions to the jury in Moncton, N.B., on Thursday.

Janson Bryan Baker has been on trial for two counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of Bernard Saulnier, 78, and his wife Rose-Marie Saulnier, 74.

The couple were found dead in their home in Dieppe, N.B., on Sept. 7, 2019.

RCMP announced the charges against Baker in 2023, on the fourth anniversary of the couple’s deaths. At the time the charges were laid, Baker was an inmate at the Atlantic Institution, a maximum-security corrections facility in Renous, N.B.

Baker’s trial has lasted nearly three months and closing arguments were delivered Wednesday.

Defence lawyer Brian Munro told the jury the Crown did not prove Baker committed the murders or that his client was even in the couple’s house at the time, saying “there’s no physical evidence in this case of any kind against Janson Baker.”

Munro argued that much of the Crown’s case is speculative and also cautioned the jury against trusting the evidence of two key witnesses, including Zach Trevors, who had previously testified that he saw Baker in the Saulniers’ house with his arms raised and that he heard a scream.

Munro said in his closing arguments that Trevors’ testimony had inconsistencies, saying “he is incentivized, he’s motivated not to tell the truth.”

However, Crown prosecutor Brad Burgess challenged that idea, arguing that a guilty finding is “the only rational conclusion.”

Trending Now

• Indian government no longer targeting Canadians, senior official says on eve of PM’s visit

• Best friends who played on Jasper hockey team remembered as ‘bright shining lights’

It has been the Crown’s assertion that the Saulniers’ deaths were collateral damage in an attempted murder of their son as part of retribution for allegedly betraying a drug trafficking ring.

Their son, Sylvio, died in 2023 but police have said there was no criminality in his death.

In his closing argument, Burgess said it was Baker’s testimony that was unreliable and that any inconsistencies between his witnesses’ testimonies only went to prove that they had not corroborated.

Burgess also said the charges of first-degree murder were warranted because he alleges the Saulniers were killed while being forcibly confined.

He concluded by saying, “It’s now Janson Baker who’s trapped. He’s trapped by the evidence in this case and the inescapable conclusion that it leads to.”

&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.