Trial begins less than year after cop stabbed, inmate blinded

Mark Lindsay faces two assault charges in Kamloops — and has a murder trial next year in Edmonton.

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• Murder trial set to begin next week

Wearing a red prison jumpsuit with his stocking feet shackled at the ankles, an accused murderer from Edmonton was escorted by two sheriffs into a Kamloops courtroom this afternoon (Aug. 13), one day before the start of what is expected to be two weeks of trials.

Mark Lindsay is facing two counts of aggravated assault — one alleging he stabbed an undercover RCMP officer during an elaborate sting last September; the other stemming from an altercation inside a jail cell at Kamloops Regional Correctional Centre weeks later that blinded an inmate.

The brief appearance was a formality, at which a B.C. Supreme Court judge told the suspected killer he was being remanded in custody until the start of his trial.

Beginning tomorrow, the Crown is expected to call evidence from the undercover Mountie allegedly stabbed in Barriere on Sept. 21, 2011, three other RCMP officers and a B.C. Ambulance paramedic.

Lindsay, the son of former Edmonton police chief John Lindsay, was arrested by Kamloops Mounties shortly after the altercation.

In a series of exclusive jailhouse interviews with KTW in December, the 25-year-old was adamant he had no idea the person with whom he was travelling was an undercover Mountie.

The Crown expects to wrap its case against Lindsay regarding the undercover officer as early as Wednesday, Aug. 15.

Next week, Lindsay is slated to stand trial on a separate aggravated assault charge relating to an alleged jail-cell stabbing in October — an incident that left 21-year-old Michel Fougere, who had been Lindsay’s cellmate, blind in one eye.

In March, police in Alberta announced they had laid a second-degree murder charge against Lindsay in relation to the death of Dana Turner, his former girlfriend.

Turner, 31, went missing on Aug. 14, 2011 — two days after Lindsay was released from an Edmonton jail after serving a 50-day sentence for stabbing her in the head.

It is believed the undercover operation was in relation to Turner’s disappearance.

Turner’s body was found last October in a farmer’s field near Red Deer in central Alberta.

Lindsay is due in an Alberta courtroom in January for a preliminary inquiry on the murder charge.