Trial officially underway for body in freezer murder case

A St. Thomas, Ont. courtroom heard the grisly details surrounding the death of a Mississauga man who was found in a freezer seventeen years after he disappeared Thursday.

In his opening address to the jury, Crown Attorney Andrew Paul described how Ashley Max Domenic Pereira, 33, died. The Crown laid out its case saying that Chad Reu-Waters, 48, told his ex-wife what he had done to the victim.

Paul said, “The accused told her he killed Ashley, that he kept Ashley’s body in a freezer and that he had strangled him.”

He went on to say, “Someone had tightly tied a cord around Pereira’s neck.”

The court heard that years later, the freezer in question was dumped off a cliff east of Port Burwell and that’s where it was found in May 2019.

The man who discovered the freezer, Jacob Harder, was the first to testify in the case. He told the jury he was out on a hike when he saw the freezer along the Lake Erie cliff.

Harder said, “There was a lock on there...I thought it was weird.” When Harden broke the lock he testified, “A shoe fell out with a bone in it, I kind of freaked out and called 9-1-1.”

Reu-Waters has pleaded not guilty to first degree murder and committing an indignity to a body.

The court heard that the victim and the accused were known to each other. Both had spent time together at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.

Pereira, who lived in Mississauga, was last seen alive in March of 2002.

The trial resumes on Friday.