A former cellmate of Peter Beckett, who's on trial for the first degree murder of his wife, continued to give testimony in a Kelowna courtroom on Wednesday.
The witness, whose identity is protected under a publication ban, told the jury that Beckett told him he tried to save his wife, Laura Letts-Beckett, when he saw her drowning in 2010, but he also said Beckett asked him for help with getting rid of some crown witnesses.
“Beckett is trying to have a number of potential targets ‘taken care of’ prior to his trial for murder,” he wrote in a 2011 letter to an RCMP sergeant that he read out in court.
In that same letter, the former cellmate said Beckett wanted to threaten his wife’s will lawyer, Raymond Barlow, who testified on the first day of the trial.
“Beckett said if I could quote ‘shake up’ Barlow, trunk him, and have this will brought to its original state, we could live a very comfy life.”
During his testimony, Barlow said he had done two wills for Letts-Beckett, one in the 90’s and one in 2007, both of which listed her parents as the only beneficiaries.
Defence lawyer Marilyn Sandford questioned the former cellmate's credibility, revealing that the RCMP was paying him to testify and pointing to his criminal history, which spans over 30 years and includes convictions for fraud, impersonation and assault.
“Part of what you do is not tell the truth, isn’t it?” asked Sandford.
The former cellmate said he wasn’t lying and that the only reason he was testifying was for the Letts family and his own sister, who he has said was murdered.
Laura Letts-Beckett drowned while boating in an inflatable boat in Upper Arrow Lake near Revelstoke with Beckett, who was charged in her death a year later.
Beckett was a city councillor in Napier, New Zealand for one-term in the 90's before moving to Canada.
This is his second jury trial, after the jury in his first trial in Kamloops failed to reach a decision.
The trial continues.
Laura Letts-Beckett (Facebook)