Dead miner's buried treasure was found not stolen, Yukon court hears

A Yukon judge must decide whether three people accused of stealing buried treasure actually stole it, or just found it.

Closing arguments were heard in YukonTerritorial Court Monday in the trial of 38-year-old Robert Venables, his partner Carrie Ann Russell, 42, and his mother Joanne Louise Venables, 61.

Robert Venables is charged with theft and possession of gold and silver exceeding $5,000, Russell is charged with possession of stolen property over $5,000 and another count of possession under $5,000, and Joanne Louise Venables is charged with possessing stolen property under $5,000.

According to court filings, the goods are alleged to be about $106,000 of gold and silver coins, gold nuggets and a silver bar sold through a local agent to a B.C. buyer and to a Whitehorse gem shop in September2017.

I give it a kick and the top came off, and there was money in there.- Robert Venables in a videotaped interview with RCMP

Robert Venables allegedly stole the treasure from the estate of Anthony (Tony)Kopp.

Kopp, a miner who died of natural causes in May 2017 at age 76,was rumoured to have a stash of gold on his mining claim north of Whitehorse. Joanne Louise Venables had been a longtime friend of Kopp's.

Prosecutor Leo Lanesaid that in August2017, Robert Venables came home with Kopp's stash. Witnesses at the trial, which began lastNovember, testified that Venables originally claimed to have panned the gold from a local creek.

In November, 2017, however, Venablestold an RCMP officer that he found it by chance in the bush about five kilometres from Kopp's claim.

"I walked and I fell over, and I found it.," Venables said during a videotapedinterview at the Whitehorse detachment.

"This tube just sitting there and just nothing covering it. It looked like water. Water veins kind of thing, sticking out of the ground.

"So I give it a kick and the top came off, and there was money in there, you know what I mean gold, and I was like, 'what the f--k, this is crazy, this can't be true,'" he told the officer.

Lane, however, argued thatthe only reasonable explanation is that Venables found Kopp's stash.

But Robert Venables's lawyer Malcolm Campbellsaid there's no proof the treasurecame from Kopp'sclaim or that it ever belonged to the deceased miner.

The lawyer for Venables'smother, Lynn MacDiarmid,pointed out that her clientonly had one gold coin and there's no evidence where it came from.

Russell's lawyer Greg Johansonagreed that Robert Venables's find was buriedtreasure. Johansen argued that whoever put it in the groundhad abandoned it, and so Robert Venables didn't steal it, but simply found it.

The case has been adjourned while Judge Mike Cozenscomes to a decision on the verdict.