The gated community where Kalmring was killed still shows Wiens name on the outer gate.

(SHANNON QUESNEL / iNFOnews.ca)

“YOU SEEM PRETTY ON TOP OF YOUR FINANCES”: CROWN

On New Year's Day of 2011 Keith Gregory Wiens sat down to write a letter to his then common-law partner Lynn Kalmring. The letter outlines a number of expenses Kalmring would have to start paying if she wanted to continue their relationship. Yesterday in Kelowna Supreme Court Wiens was asked if the letter was prompted by a fight.

Wiens however couldn't recall ever fighting with Kalmring, “we had a great relationship, we had a lot of fun together,” he told the jury. Wiens is charged with second degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Kalmring.

Crown lawyer Colin Forsyth asked Wiens why he would be writing a letter at 12:00 a.m. on New Year's Day.

“Lynn wanted to know the costs of the Arizona house,” Wiens explained. But Forsyth asked why he chose to use such harsh language when stating he might have to sell their vacation home “...giving you a very nice profit for doing fuck all.”

Forsyth suggested the confrontational tone would have likely been prompted by a fight or some degree of malice. Wiens insisted it was his normal, everyday language.

“I was being hugely generous towards her,” he says, having put half of his Arizona vacation property in Kalmring's name, despite having paid for it himself. Wiens also says they never discussed the letter after he gave it to her.

“I continued to pay the bills on the Arizona house....she wasn't giving me any money,” he said.

When police attended the crime scene where Kalmring was fatally shot on August 16, 2011 they found $2,005 US cash sitting with some financial documents and a diamond ring on the kitchen island of the couple's Penticton home.

That money belonged to Wiens. He usually kept the money in his bedroom but took it out to attach to his VISA bill for expenses from the couple's trip to Arizona.

“You seem pretty on top of your finances,” Forsyth said. Wiens also described to the jury his practice of logging debit receipts to tally his weekly expenses.

The ring sitting on top of the cash was a solitaire diamond Wiens bought for Kalmring.

“It wasn't an engagement ring... I never ever proposed to Lynn,” he explained. Kalmring was disappointed about this and started wearing the ring on her right hand, he says.

“I was being very loving and kind towards her,” he added and says the two never fought about marriage, though on a trip to Las Vegas Kalmring had taken him to various chapels in the hopes of getting married.

Forsyth also questioned Wiens about comments he made during a picnic at Okanagan Falls weeks prior to the shooting. Earlier in the trial Kalmring's daughter and son-in-law testified Wiens complained Kalmring wasn't pulling her weight, saying: “she doesn't have a pot to piss in.”

“I disagree with that 100 per cent,” he said and denied making any derogatory remarks about Kalmring that day. He says he never spoke to her daughter in private and only spoke to Kalmring's son-in-law.

On the eve of the fatal shooting, Wiens says Kalmring asked him if he made comments behind her back. Wiens says he assured her he merely told her son-in-law she would have to "go back to work,” and recalls Kalmring abruptly responding: “I know that.”

The crown's cross-examination will continue today.

To contact the reporter for this story, email Julie Whittet at jwhittet@infotelnews.ca or call (250)718-0428.

News from © iNFOnews, 2013