Slain jogger's husband accuses police of lying

The husband of Wendy Ladner-Beaudry, who was killedin a park on Vancouver's west side in April, says police investigating the crime are playing games.

Michel Beaudry,whoRCMPruled out as a suspectat a press conference in June,told CBC News during an interview Wednesday thathe is frustrated by the lack of progress with the investigation into his wife's death.

Beaudry said an RCMP homicide investigator called him a few weeks ago with a request.

"The RCMP contacted me some weeks ago and said to me that, essentially, they had exhausted their leads, that they need me to go back to the media and plead to the public to help us out," he said.

Beaudry said he was given the impression that if he didn't make a public plea, the investigation would be over.

"When somebody comes to me and says, 'We are at the end of our rope. We need your help after five months of investigation' It really frustrates me."

But police are denying that they askedBeaudry to go public, saying they even cautioned him against doing that.

"Mr. Beaudry indicated that he wanted to and we simply indicated to him that while we couldn't stop him, we would like that he not do anything that would harm the investigation," said RCMP Cpl. Dale Carr, who speaks for the RCMP's Integrated Homicide Investigation Team.

On Wednesday, Carr said while the investigation has been pared down from nearly 100 officers to eight, work continues daily on trying to solve the crime.

"We've eliminated the husband and now we're moving on to a persons of interest list, going through that, and it's very complex and it's very time consuming," Carr said.

In an angrily worded email to CBC News after learning that police denied they had made a request for him to go public, Beaudry accused the RCMP of playing games by questioning his integrity and trying to isolate him from family and supporters.

He said the RCMP has effectively labelled him a liar.

"It's like waking up and being the star of a really bad movie. It just doesn't go away."

Beaudry is adamant he had no motive and no opportunity to kill his wife.

"I'm right now, like, I'm living this crime novel and it's weirder than fiction," he said.

Carr said he doesn't want to inflame the situation by commenting on Beaudry's allegations.

He said the RCMP is just interested in solving the crime.

Ladner-Beaudry's body was found at about 2:40 p.m. PT on April 3 on a trail in the Pacific Spirit Regional Park near the University of British Columbia, close to SW Marine Drive and Camosun Street.

Police believe the 53-year-old mother of two daughters, aged 16 and 21, was slain while jogging in the park.