May 27, 2009 - 03:26 PM

By Jeff Mitchell

WHITBY -- The widow of murdered trucker Donald Woods tearfully recounted Wednesday the last contact she had with her husband before his body was found in Pickering.

"The last words I heard from my husband were, 'I love you and I'll talk to you in the morning'," Nicole Woods said as she began to weep on the witness stand in Superior Court in Whitby.

Ms. Woods recounted for jurors how her concern grew as the following day, June 22, 2006, passed without her hearing from her husband, who was typically in touch with her by phone several times a day when he was on the road.

"Later that evening, around 5 o'clock, I packed up my son and picked up my dad and we went looking for my husband," Ms. Woods said.

Ms. Woods drove from her Brockville-area home west on Hwy. 401 to a truck stop in Belleville her husband had called her from the previous night, jurors heard. But there was no trace of Mr. Woods or his rig, Ms. Woods testified.

She learned the next day Mr. Woods had been found shot to death in the sleeper cab of his truck, which was found behind the Wal-Mart store on Brock Road in Pickering. His cargo, a load of air-chilled chicken, was missing.

Charged with first-degree murder in Mr. Woods's slaying is Paul Cyr, of Montreal.

Under questioning by prosecutor Jinwon Kim, Ms. Woods said her husband, a long-time trucker working for a Montreal company, was at the time of his death considering an offer from another Montreal firm, JC Drivers. That company, jurors have heard, was operated by Paul Cyr's brother, Jacques Cyr.

Mr. Woods had made arrangements to meet with someone from JC Drivers at the Ten Acre truck stop in Belleville the night he disappeared, jurors heard.

Ms. Woods testified that when she stopped at the truck stop in search of her husband, she spoke to a man in a JC Drivers truck.

"They were who Donnie was supposed to meet the night before," Ms. Woods testified.

The trial continues.