RCMP officer Greg Morrow, lead investigator into the death of 17-year-old Deijean Drybones, testified this week regarding steps he took to investigate Deijean’s stabbing while facing questions about “tunnel vision.”
Deijean was found with a stab wound in Behchokǫ̀ in the early morning of August 4, 2023. He was taken to the community’s health centre and later Yellowknife’s Stanton Territorial Hospital, where he died.
Zakk Lafferty was charged with second-degree murder in 2023. In October 2025, a mistrial was declared after the jury couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict. A retrial began last week.
Morrow was the RCMP officer in charge of the investigation into Deijean’s death. Opening his testimony, Morrow explained the command triangle, a leadership concept used by police in investigations of major crimes. Three officers fill the roles of team commander, lead investigator and file coordinator to spread responsibility, maximize the investigation’s resources and assign clear roles. However, for much of the investigation into Deijean’s stabbing, Morrow held all three roles.
After Morrow answered questions from the Crown on his investigative steps and why he arrested Lafferty on August 4, the defence suggested Morrow had “tunnel vision” during the investigation and that he considered only Lafferty to be a suspect, even though three people, all of whom were at the house where Deijean was found stabbed, were arrested on the same evening.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
The three individuals, who were arrested for mischief, were released on August 4 after RCMP officers took witness statements, their clothing was seized, and they had photos and forensic swabs taken. Morrow said while he believed he had legal grounds to hold them longer, he felt that wasn’t necessary in this case given he had no evidence at that point to suggest one of them may have been involved in the stabbing.
Morrow told the defence and jurors he was open to anyone being a suspect, but the individuals in custody never met the threshold for him to consider them suspects.
Lafferty’s arrest was ordered during a 10:50am briefing in Behchokǫ̀ on August 4, after Morrow heard a recording taken by RCMP officers Maude Martel and Blake McNeil in which Deijean tells McNeil Lafferty had stabbed him.
Search for evidence
After a search of the house in which Deijean was found stabbed, the area surrounding the house and Lafferty’s grandparents’ house, no murder weapon was found, Morrow said. He said police took no further steps to find a murder weapon because the autopsy didn’t provide any new details regarding what the weapon may have been.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
The defence questioned Morrow on why certain items were seized from the house where Deijean was found stabbed, why some were sent for testing, why fingerprints were never taken from any items in the home, and why none of the knives in the kitchen were tested for blood.
Morrow said he did not seize any of the liquor bottles in the house or on the deck because he was unsure of how long they were there and if they were involved in events before the stabbing.
Further, Morrow said any items outside would be hard to get evidence from because of their exposure to the elements. Morrow said this was why a bottle of Smirnoff vodka – matching the description of a bottle that Lafferty told RCMP officer Jeff Linnen had been stolen from him after three individuals beat him up – was never sent for testing.
Answering why fingerprints were never taken in the house – particularly from door handles, as one witness told RCMP she heard a door slam while on a call with Deijean that night – Morrow said door handles are high-traffic areas and don’t often give useable fingerprints.
Morrow said he only conducted a secondary search of the kitchen, but he did not see any visible signs of blood in the room nor any sign that the knives would be the murder weapon, which is why none were seized or tested.
To test items for DNA evidence, Morrow explained they have to be sent to forensic labs down south which are also busy handling demands from RCMP across the country. Morrow said he spoke with an intake officer at one of these labs to determine which items would result in the most probative value if they were tested.
Only Lafferty’s t-shirt, swabs of Lafferty’s left and right hands, a swab from the porch outside the house where Deijean was found stabbed, a swab from a light switch inside that house, and a sample of Deijean’s DNA were sent for testing. Lafferty’s sweatpants and swabs from Lafferty’s fingernails were requested to be tested, but were not sent.
Earlier, Morrow said, a decision had been taken not to seek a warrant for Lafferty’s DNA to be tested. It was assumed that DNA on Lafferty’s shirt was his.
Advertisement.
Advertisement.
Only two of five phones found at the house were sent to have their contents downloaded. Morrow said one person in Canada downloads and analyzes phone contents for all RCMP investigations, so he chose a phone that matched the description of Lafferty’s device and a phone found in the bathroom where Deijean was found stabbed, as he felt these two devices would provide the most probative value.
The Crown and defence are expected to present their closing statements on Thursday.
