BARRIE—Braving the season’s first snowfall, Toronto musician Kevin Hearn made his way up Highway 400 last week for the final chapter in one of Canada’s largest art fraud forgery cases — one that he helped set in motion two decades ago.

“I just keep trying to understand the truth of this matter, as clearly as I can, so I can have some sense of closure,” Hearn said after emerging from the courtroom where a jury heard the final addresses from the prosecution and the defendant, Jeff Cowan.

In May 2005, Hearn, best known as the keyboardist for the Barenaked Ladies, bought a painting called “Spirit Energy of Mother Earth,” purported to be by the renowned Indigenous artist Norval Morrisseau. To a layperson, it resembles many Morrisseau artworks — a striking image, with bold figures on a bright

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