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“Everybody’s a loser in this particular case. Five outstanding people were killed and nothing, no decision, will get around that.”

Standing in the lobby of the Calgary courthouse on Thursday afternoon, Neil Wiberg talks to the media about the case he’s spent the past four days prosecuting, the quintuple murder trial of Matthew de Grood.

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As he fields questions about his ultimate goal — Wiberg says it’s “to get at the truth” — the kindly Edmonton-based prosecutor’s emotions periodically betray him.

“I don’t think they’ll ever get over this,” he says, his voice cracking, when asked about how the trial’s conclusion on Tuesday will help the families of the five victims. “In fairness, you’d have to ask them,” he says, before adding, “I doubt that things will ever be the same again.”

For the past four days on the 14th floor of the Calgary courthouse building, emotions have run high as the 24-year-old de Grood has faced a trial by judge alone for the killings of Zackariah Rathwell, Jordan Segura, Kaitlin Perras, Joshua Hunter and Lawrence Hong.