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“The words entered were: ‘Where to commit a murder,’ ” Lacelle said. A few weeks earlier there had been a search on the computer for, “Can a prisoner have control over their real estate,” the prosecutor said.

Lacelle said that autopsies on the victims showed that they drowned, though experts could not determine when they drowned. Toxicology tests did not find any evidence of any incapacitating substances in the bodies of the victims. Three of the victims had fresh bruises on the crowns of their heads. Lacelle offered no explanation for the injuries.

Only one witness appeared Thursday, Kingston police Const. Julia Moore, an identification officer who collected evidence and took photos at the scene. Moore explained that the car in which the victims were found, a Nissan Sentra, was in first gear, with the driver’s side window down, the headlights switched off. The two front seats were reclined.

Lacelle said the jurors will hear evidence that Tooba and Hamed have both acknowledged in statements that they were at the locks when the Sentra went into the water. In public statements the family made in the days after the deaths, they said that their daughter, Zainab, had taken the car without permission on that night and they did not know how the four ended up dead in the canal.

The family had stopped in Kingston early on the morning of June 30 on the way home to Montreal from a family trip to Niagara Falls. They took two rooms at a motel near the locks.

Defence lawyers did not make any opening statements to the jury and they have not yet cross-examined Moore. She will be back on the stand Friday.