Crown counsel was expected to continue calling witnesses today in the second-degree murder trial of Dean Boucher and Mark Lange.

The trial began Monday with Crown counsel Edith Campbell presenting an overview of the Crown's case to the 12-member jury made up of eight women and four men.

Yukon Supreme Court Justice Leigh Gower is presiding over the case.

Campbell told the jury that over the three weeks scheduled for the trial, she and co-Crown counsel John Phelps will call witnesses and show evidence to prove that Boucher and Lange murdered Robert Olson, the owner of the Caribou Hotel in Carcross at the time of his death.

The trial will show, she said, that around 11:30 p.m. on Dec. 23, 2004, Lange, who did not know Olson, and Boucher went into the Caribou Hotel. The three were the only people inside at the time.

The Crown plans to show that at some point during the time they were there, they robbed and brutally beat Olson, placing stolen artwork and Olson in the truck they were driving.

They then drove to Whitehorse.

Evidence, said Campbell, will show they did not stop at the nurse's station nor RCMP station in Carcross. At some point, Olson died of his injuries on the drive to Whitehorse, court was told.

Olson's body was disposed of in the Wolf Creek subdivision, Campbell stated.

The truck then got stuck in a nearby ditch.

Boucher and Lange were later seen at the Petro Canada station in the McCrae area.

Witnesses will also testify that after Dec. 24, 2004, the Caribou Hotel was found in disarray.

The main issue in the case will be in determining what happened between the time Boucher and Lange were at the hotel and at the gas station, said Campbell.

There will also be evidence in the form of photographs, DNA information as well as fingerprint and footprint analysis, court was told.

The Crown's theory, Campbell concluded, is that Lange and Boucher committed second-degree murder knowing the injuries could cause death, and were reckless to that.

After presenting the Crown's case to the jury, the Crown called its first witness, Roberta James, who told the court she drove her nephew (Boucher) and his friend (Lange) to about a kilometre or two from downtown Carcross a little after 8 p.m. on Dec. 23, 2004.

'I just dropped them off and told them to walk,' she said, noting they wanted to go to the store, which was closed.

She had picked them up, as well as her son, from another home earlier, when her son had called to see if he could get a drive.

Her son was dropped off at his place before she told Boucher and Lange to walk if they wanted to go to the store across the river.

While Boucher, Lange and her son had been drinking, they weren't drunk when she picked them up, she said.

They were in the car for five or 10 minutes before she told them to walk.