Video shows woman entering motel room and never leaving, Windsor murder trial hears

A video was shown to a jury, showing the last time Sahra Bulle was seen alive. CTV Windsor’s Travis Fortnum reports.

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On the sixth day of testimony in the trial of a Michigan man accused of murder, jurors saw video evidence that appears to capture both the last time Sahra Bulle was seen alive — and what looked like her body being carried away.

Surveillance footage shows a woman believed to be 36-year-old Bulle entering Room 27 of a motel on Huron Church Road on the evening of May 26, 2023.

Windsor police Sgt. Michelle Pelaccia, who was then a constable with the major crimes unit, testified she reviewed days of recordings from the motel and never saw the woman leave.

She said Bulle appeared to be holding a pink phone case as she entered the room, and investigators later recovered what looked to be the same case near the motel’s garbage area.

From there, court was shown a sequence of clips tracking the movements of Bulle’s ex-husband, 47-year-old Brian Marbury.

On the morning of May 28 — two days after Bulle was last seen — video shows a man, identified in court as Marbury, leaving Room 27.

Another camera later records him at Canadian Tire, where he buys a shovel.

He’s then seen returning to the motel without it, before heading out again.

Footage from later that morning shows Marbury at a Shoppers Drug Mart, first purchasing bleach, then returning minutes later to buy garbage bags.

A subsequent clip shows him back at the motel with a red store bag in hand.

In the early hours of May 29, 2023, at 2:36 a.m., another camera captures Marbury leaving Room 27 with what Pelaccia testified resembled a body wrapped in garbage bags and a sheet.

She said the object appeared so heavy that he shifted its weight on his shoulder as he carried it down the stairs.

Several people in the gallery wept as the footage played Wednesday.

Following the digital trail

Pelaccia also testified Wednesday about Uber records that helped investigators trace Bulle’s final movements.

Police learned it was an account linked to Marbury’s phone number — not Bulle’s — that ordered the ride taking her from Hiatus House, a shelter for women fleeing abuse, to the motel on Huron Church Road.

The trip was logged shortly after 7:30 p.m. on May 26, 2023.

The Uber driver, who testified earlier in the trial, was the last person to see her alive.

Bulle was reported missing by Hiatus House staff on May 30, 2023.

Her body was found a week later in a wooded area about 400 metres from the motel.

Marbury has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder, but guilty to causing an indignity to a human body.

The trial, before Justice Ian Leach and a jury of 14, is scheduled to continue Thursday.