The last time Shirley Dawson saw her father alive, he surprised her at work one Monday with a bucket of KFC for lunch, she told a Yukon Supreme Court jury Thursday afternoon.

'I believe that was the last time I spoke with him or had a meal with him,' she said struggling against tears.

It would be almost two weeks before Shirley would see her father Gerald Dawson again, when she found his body in his home 10 days after he'd been killed in June 2004.

The first witness to take the stand in the second degree murder trial of accused Karen Rodrigue, Shirley told the seven women and five men of the jury about her growing anxiety as days went by without hearing from her father.

She explained that at first she thought he was out of town, because of the way the outside of the house was left.

Whenever he went away he would close an outer plywood door and put something in front of it to keep it shut.

Also one of his vehicles, a blue Chevy Lumina, was gone.

Her father called whenever he left Whitehorse, she said.

After not hearing from Gerald by Friday of that week, Shirley was very concerned, the court heard.

She phoned James Wood, one of her father's close friends and longtime business partner, asking him to help her find Gerald.

A few days later, on Sunday, Wood phoned Shirley to say he had found the Lumina.

Wood, the second Crown witness, told the court it was parked in Rodrigue's driveway.

He felt ill upon finding the car, he said.

'By this time I felt totally sick to my stomach,' he said. 'I knew something was wrong.'

Shirley was at her daughter's soccer game when Wood phoned to tell her about the car. She asked him to meet her and her daughter at Gerald's house.

Upon arriving, Shirley put a ladder up the side of the house to look in a window. She could see the house was in disarray and that a light was on in the back room.

Wood arrived and opened the outer plywood door. There was a note attached to the inner door saying that Gerald was gone to B.C. for two weeks for a funeral.

The handwriting, though, was not his, Shirley said.

Shirley and Wood's memory of the night differ slightly at this point, according to testimony. Shirley said she dialed the number for the police and gave Wood the cell phone. She was unable to speak because she was so overcome by emotion.

Wood said he pried the inner door open a small ways and a terrible smell came pouring out of the house.

He described that moment, jimmying open the door with Shirley and her daughter beside him, as one of the 'worst moments of my life.'

The police, and Shirley's husband, both came rushing to the house, Wood said.

Two RCMP officers entered the home and confirmed there was a body inside, Shirley said.

When asked by Crown prosecutor David McWhinnie, if she saw anything inside, she said no.

'I didn't look. I didn't want to look.'

Her husband had to take her to hospital, she said.

At 1:30 a.m., Wood was called back to the house to identify the body, which had been removed from the house and was in a plastic bag.

When asked if he was able to identify the body, Wood responded 'barely.'

The court also heard from a number of other witnesses.

Robert Huesler, the owner of Needful Things thrift store in Whitehorse, who accepted a chain saw from Rodrigue as a pawn item on June 17, 2004 the same day he was killed.

Huesler said he heard Rodrigue was involved in Gerald's death and phoned the RCMP who came to take the chain saws.

Murray Freeman, who bought a chain saw on June 17, 2004, was also in court.

The other witness that appeared yesterday afternoon was Carolyne Chambers.

Chambers said she had a similar relationship to Gerald that Rodrigue did, as well as two other women. She described them as close friends who would eat meals at each other's houses. Gerald would give them rides when they needed them, lend them small amounts of cash which they would be expected to pay back and would sometimes buy them beer, she said.

While she said she couldn't remember the exact date, sometime around the 18 or 19 of June, 2004, Rodrigue and a man came by her house with crack and cider, driving Gerald's car.

Chambers told the court that to her knowledge Rodrigue didn't have any money to buy the crack with.

'She must have scored money from somewhere,' Chambers said.

While witnesses yesterday testified that Gerald's relationship with the women was friendship-based, David Bunbury, a distant relative and close friend of Gerald's, told the jury today that he believed there was more to the relationship between Dawson and Rodrigue.

'I was lead to the conclusion that it might have been a little bit more than a friendship,' Bunbury said.

Rodrigue was treated differently than Gerald's other female friends, he told the court.

He said she was lent greater sums of money and drove his vehicles.

When asked if there was a sexual relationship between Rodrigue and Gerald, Bunbury said: 'I believe it did come through our conversations a couple of times. I told him I thought she was using him.'

The trial is scheduled to continue this afternoon and into next week.