Adamson told the court that she spoke with the younger Oland for a few minutes when he arrived at the office the previous evening before Richard Oland joined the conversation.

The 46-year-old entered a plea of not guilty at the start of jury selection last week. Richard Oland, 69, was found dead in his Saint John office on July 7, 2011.

The Crown says Richard Oland died after suffering 40 blows to the head and neck as the murder trial of his son Dennis Oland opened Wednesday in Saint John, N.B.

“The perpetrator for whatever reason or reasons continued way beyond what was required to cause Richard Oland’s death”.

She testified that, as of July 7, 2011, Oland’s worth was believed to be around $37 million.

“I panicked. I went downstairs to get somebody”, Adamson told Dennis Oland’s trial in the Court of Queen’s Bench.

Veniot also outlined the relationship between father and son, saying it was more like that of a client and banker.

The Olands are one of the leading business families in the Maritimes, operating Moosehead Breweries, although Richard Oland left the company in 1981.

And, though Dick Oland had bailed out Dennis when he and his first wife divorced in 2009 – motivated, it appears, by the fact the family homestead in nearby Rothesay was at risk of falling out of family hands – it was “not without a cost”, Veniot said in his mild way.

Richard gave his son a $500,000 loan and Dennis was to make interest-only payments of $1,667 per month to his father.

By July 6, 2011, Veniot said Dennis Oland had maxed out a $163,000 line of credit and secured an advance from his employer in June 2011.

“On July 6, 2011”, he told the jurors with remarkable understatement, “the accused was living beyond his means”.

And the post-dated interest cheques he delivered in bunches to his father had run out, and he’d made neither the May nor June payments. When she was going through the mail after Richard’s death, that cheque had returned with insufficient funds.

Although he kept close tabs on his stock holdings, she said Richard Oland did not inquire frequently about Dennis’ monthly payments.

She was asked by police within the next week to walk through the office to see if anything was out of the ordinary or missing, but Adamson said she didn’t notice anything amiss.

The jury in the second-degree murder trial of Dennis Oland is expected to prepare for a graphic evidence today.