Hank Daniszewski was a cub reporter in June 1981 when a Hamilton Spectator editor sent him to interview the parents of a young nursing assistant who was believed to have been raped and murdered.

Now a business reporter with the London Free Press, Daniszewski took the witness box yesterday at the first-degree murder trial of Robert Badgerow, 51, who has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Diane Louisa Werendowicz nearly 29 years ago.

The journalist remembered it was Father's Day when he spoke to the father, and the day before the man's daughter would have turned 24 years old. The summer student saved the hardest question for the last but, in the end, couldn't bring himself to print the grief-stricken man's answer.

"My last question was to ask if he'd got something for his daughter's birthday."

Daniszewski said the 61-year-old construction worker paused and said: "Well, I guess we're going to get her a coffin."

Assistant Crown attorney Cheryl Gzik called evidence from two other members of the news media about what details had been published and broadcast immediately after the June 20, 1981, homicide.

CHCH reporter Scott Urquhart said the television station had no record of a camera crew being sent to the ravine off Lake Avenue North where the body was found face down in Stoney Creek. He said if there were news scripts read over air that weekend, they would have been kept for a year and then destroyed.

Gzik and defence lawyer Boris Bytensky read into the record prior testimony of the late Bill Sturrup, a CHML radio reporter and broadcaster who died in 2007. Sturrup testified at an earlier trial CHML ran its first item about the murder on its 12:30 p.m. newscast on the Monday following the discovery of the body.

The reporters' testimony was relevant to an issue in the trial. The Crown contends Hamilton police did not tell the public Werendowicz had been raped and strangled with the strap of her purse. Detectives held back these details so they could test whether a possible suspect or witness had genuine knowledge of the crime.

Their first lead came at 12:19 p.m. on Monday, June 22, when they received a 911 call from an unidentified male. The man told them the victim had been raped before being strangled with her purse strap. He gave an accurate description of Werendowicz and said she was found face down in the "crick."

Years later, police who were reinvestigating the unsolved case made public an audiotape of the 911 call. The trial is expected to hear from some of Badgerow's former friends and Dofasco co-workers that it is his voice on the tape.

Defence lawyer Leo Adler questioned Daniszewski about a headline on his 1981 story that suggested the victim had been strangled. The reporter said the headline was written by a copy editor and referenced information in the story from the victim's father, who told him the police believed his daughter had been strangled.

Daniszewski said he did not know at the time the victim was strangled with her purse strap.

He said mention in the story that she "may have been sexually assaulted" had come from a police officer.

bbrown@thespec.com

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