Jun 30, 2009 - 05:10 PM

By Jeff Mitchell

WHITBY -- Paul Cyr has been found guilty of the brutal slaying of Donald Woods, a trucker whose body was discovered three years ago in Pickering.

Jurors returned with a verdict just before 4 p.m. Tuesday, having deliberated a little more than a day. They pronounced Mr. Cyr, 52, of Montreal, guilty of first-degree murder; he was also found guilty of theft over $5,000 in the theft of the slain trucker's cargo, a load of fresh chicken with a value of $40,000.

The muscular Mr. Cyr, clad in a blue shirt and jeans, betrayed no emotion when the verdict was delivered. Nicole Woods, wife of the murdered man, gasped and began to sob when the finding of guilt was read out.

Tuesday's conviction is Mr. Cyr's second for a killing; he was released on parole in 2001 after serving 14 years for the second-degree killing of a Toronto man in a botched drug heist. Mr. Cyr now faces an automatic sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole for 25 years for the first-degree murder of Mr. Woods.

Jurors were not told of Mr. Cyr's prior murder conviction or of other violent offences he's committed.

The case against Mr. Cyr was a circumstantial one. The prosecution, led by assistant Crown attorney Jinwon Kim, painstakingly presented evidence including phone records and security video clips that put Mr. Cyr in the area on the night Mr. Woods disappeared, June 21, 2006.

Jurors heard evidence that Mr. Cyr's trucking company had extended a job offer to Mr. Woods. And Nicole Woods testified that the last time she talked to her husband, he told her he was planning to meet a representative of that company at the 10 Acre truck stop in Belleville.

Evidence presented by the Crown put Mr. Cyr at the truck stop at the same time as Mr. Woods the night he vanished. Mr. Kim also presented the jury with evidence that Mr. Cyr made contact the next morning with a GTA food processing company, where the stolen chicken was sold.

It's believed the sale of the stolen chicken netted about $20,000.

Mr. Woods's body was found in the sleeper cab of his truck, which had been parked near the Wal-Mart on Brock Road in Pickering, on June 23, 2006. He had been shot point-blank in the back of the head with a shotgun.

Mr. Cyr is to be formally sentenced by Superior Court Justice Bryan Shaugnessy Thursday.