After a nine-week long murder trial, St. Albert’s Beryl Musila was found guilty in the first-degree murder death of Ron Worsfold.
Over the trial, the grisly details of what happened to Worsfold, 75, played out in the court and a jury found Musila, now 34, guilty in his death.
The Crown told the court they believe Musila, who was living with Worsfold in his 75 Mission Ave. apartment unit where he had been the manager for 30 years, drugged and killed the 128-pound man.
Throughout the trial where Musila represented herself, she maintained her innocence in Worsfold’s death, claiming there was a late night intruder into her and Worsfold’s apartment unit, who she chased out.
On the night of July 7, 2017, the Crown told the court Musila drugged Worsfold with Ativan and then beat him to death with a hammer, and eventually stabbed him with a knife while he was drugged on his mattress.
The court heard after Musila had stabbed Worsfold, there were series of landline calls between Worsfold’s landline phone and her boyfriend at the time Robert Rafters’ cell phone, made after midnight on July 8, 2017.
That same night after Worsfold was killed, Tyler Fischer told the court he did cocaine and drank alcohol with Musila in the early hours of July 8, in an encounter that included oral sex, after finding her distraught about her life in the parking lot of the apartment building they both lived in.
The duo did cocaine and drank beer in the parking lot and then went back up to Worsfold’s apartment unit for the sexual encounter.
Fisher said Musila told him not to worry about landlord Worsfold bursting in on them, as he had gone on vacation to Jasper. Fisher then left and went back to his apartment unit for the night.
The next morning, Stacey Worsfold was driving by her dad’s apartment building when she noticed a vehicle that had recently been stolen from him parked back in his apartment’s parking lot. The daughter pulled in to talk to her dad, but couldn’t get through to him when she called his phone. Stacey Worsfold banged on his door, thinking he might be vacuuming and couldn’t hear the phone ringing.
Instead of finding her father, Musila poked her head out of Worsfold’s apartment window and told Stacey Worsfold that she and Worsfold had got into an argument and he was off on a walk. Musila told the daughter she was cleaning and refused to let her in.
Stacey Worsfold then told Musila to pack her stuff and get out of her dad’s place, which she did. Eventually, a series of people brought Musila suitcases and a blue Rubbermaid tote and she started moving her stuff out of the apartment unit. Worsfold’s body was put inside the Rubbermaid container and Musila took him with her, and the remainder of her belonging to another location.
When Musila was out of the unit, Stacey Worsfold was able to get a key and get inside, and immediately noticed something in the unit was not right.
Stacey Worsfold contacted the RCMP and they arrived at his apartment and searched his room. They found what looked like blood on a safe, they noticed a piece of carpet was missing and eventually they flipped Worsfold’s mattress and discovered blood.
The Rubbermaid bin
After Musila packed her things at Worsfold’s apartment unit on July 8, 2017, she loaded her belongings (including Worsfold in the Rubbermaid container) up in a taxi and took her belongings to several locations in the region, before they ended up on a rural property in Parkland County.
Rafters, Musila's boyfriend was helping her move that day and noticed there was a really heavy bin, which was later determined to contain the remains of Worsfold, that was duct taped closed very well. The taxi driver helped him lift it into the cab.
“It seemed heavier than shoes and heavier than bricks, but it didn’t seem what it was,” Rafters said in court.
“I even commented as a joke, I asked if there were bricks in there or something,” he said, adding he didn’t know Worsfold was in the container.
One of the stops Musila made that day was to a hotel in Morinville, where she left the Rubbermaid container with Worsfold’s remains outside on the sidewalk for an extended period of time.
Eventually Musila ended up at a party that night, with her belongings and the Rubbermaid container in tow. The party was to celebrate the end of her friend Patrick Tansem-Reid’s parole. At one point Tansem-Reid and Rafters went to the woods on Tansem-Reid’s property and left the blue tote out there.
At some point during the night Musila confessed to Tansem-Reid that she had killed Worsfold, and handed him a box taped closed that contained the murder weapons, a hammer and knife. Tansem-Reid tossed the box out the door and said he didn’t want to have anything to do with Musila’s trouble.
The next morning Tansem-Reid was moving the blue Rubbermaid bin which unknowingly contained Ron Worsfold’s remains when the container slipped.
“It slipped out of my hands, the lid popped open, and I saw an arm—and I freaked out,” Tansem told the court through the trial
Jurors heard that he called Rafters with the unhappy news.
“’She did it, she actually did it. There’s a body in that Rubbermaid. You need to turn around and turn her in,’” he told Rafters.
Tansem then called the St. Albert RCMP with a ghastly and urgent message.
“’There is a body on my property,’” he recalled telling them.
RCMP confession
After Musila was detained, she was interviewed by the RCMP where she confessed to killing Worsfold.
"You've told me about a hammer and you've told me about a knife. Which one did you use to kill him?" the RCMP officer asked Musila days after the crime had happened.
"In all honesty, I used both," Musila replied.
In the interview Musila said she was only friends with Rafters, although he believed they were dating, and she said he was possessive and would shout at her.
Musila also told the officer that she had been in and out of a women’s shelter and had been involved in sex work. She told the RCMP officer that her and Worsfold began a sexual relationship one month after she moved into his building, around September 2016.
Musila said she was afraid of both Rafters and Worsfold, and eventually Rafters gave her the Ativan to drug the senior.
Musila said in the interview that she put the pills in Worsfold’s drink and that he fell asleep. Then she said Rafters came over to the apartment and put a pillow on Worsfold’s head, but then insisted Musila had killed the senior instead.
After her interviews with the RCMP Musila was arrested and remained in custody until the trial, which started in April of this year.
Musila will be sentenced for the first-degree murder death of Worsfold in August, along with the charge of interfering with human remains.
