Jury watches surveillance videos at trial of 2 men accused of killing Regent Park youth worker
A jury in a Toronto courtroom watched surveillance videos on Wednesday at the trial of two men charged with first-degree murder of a Regent Park youth worker.
The Crown alleges Noah Anderson, 23, and Junior Jahmal Harvey, 23, were among four masked men who fired dozens of bullets in Regent Park on the evening of Sept. 18, 2021, killing Thane Murray, 27, and injuring his two friends.
Murray, of Toronto, was shot several times in the area of Oak and Sumach streets. He died at the scene. His two friends also suffered gunshot wounds. An advocate for Regent Park's youth, Murray worked at several recreational facilities in Toronto and was an employee of the Regent Park Community Centre.
The videos that were shown to the jury focus on a sedan considered a key part of the evidence in the case being heard at the Superior Court of Justice.
The Crown has been reviewing surveillance videos to show how it believes the four alleged shooters travelled to Regent Park on the day of the shooting. The jury has spent days watching videos of a sedan that the Crown believes the four men used to carry out the murder.
Toronto police vehicles are shown here Oak Street and Sumach Street on the evening of Sept. 18, 2021. (Jeremy Cohn/CBC News)
One video shows the sedan of interest on a side street near the Chelsea Hotel on Gerrard Street W.
Video shows four masked men leaving the hotel. The Crown alleges the four walked to the sedan and drove it to Regent Park to carry out the shooting. The Crown used video to track the vehicle returning to the same street near the hotel half a hour later. Video also captured masked men walking back into the Chelsea hotel.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Crown presented images of the alleged shooters in the hotel wearing masks after the shooting.
The Crown told the jury that Anderson, before the murder, had rented a 2012 beige Nissan Altima sedan and a room at the Chelsea Hotel. Both were rented for a week.
According to an agreed statement of facts, Anderson rented the sedan on Sept. 15, 2021, parked it outside the hotel on Sept. 17 and conducted a transaction at the front desk of the hotel on Sept. 20 for $304.04.
The Crown alleges the Nissan he rented closely resembles the sedan captured on video, but the defence is challenging that argument.
Toronto police officers are shown here searching the crime scene. According to an agreed statement of facts, forensic identification officers found 59 shell casing at the homicide scene on Sept. 18 and 19, 2021. (Jeremy Cohn/CBC News)
According to the agreed statement of facts, Toronto police forensic identification officers found 59 shell casing at the homicide scene on Sept. 18 and 19.
A year later, on Sept. 12, 2022, during an unrelated drug investigation, police recovered a firearm from a residence and it was determined to be a Glock 48.
The firearm was sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences for more testing. On Oct. 26, 2022, a firearm expert determined at least one of the shell casings found from the homicide scene was fired by the Glock 48 seized by police during the drug investigation.
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LONDON, Ont.—The police detective who first investigated allegations of sexual assault by members of the 2018 Canadian world junior championship team didn't understand the legal definition of consent and didn't have 'a genuine interest' in the truth, the Crown argued at the players' trial . Det. Steve Newton, who at the time was with the London police's sexual assault and child abuse section, declined to lay charges in February 2019 following an eight-month investigation, which included interviewing the complainant several times and most of the hockey players now on trial, as well as reviewing surveillance and other video evidence. 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Michael McLeod, Alex Formenton, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube, and Cal Foote were then charged with sexual assault in 2024. In written arguments filed as part of closing submissions happening all week at the judge-alone trial , Crown attorneys Meaghan Cunningham and Heather Donkers argue that Newton had a 'fundamental misunderstanding' of the legal definition of consent, and that the 'shortcomings' of his investigation help explain why the complainant testified she felt there were details about the night she wasn't comfortable sharing with Newton. The now-retired police officer testified at trial that because the complainant was 'participating in the acts that were occurring in the room without resisting, or you know, saying she didn't want to do it,' he concluded that she had been an 'active participant' with a 'certain level of consent' on her part. The Crown and defence have completed their evidence at the Hockey Canada sex assault trial. Here's what you need to know to catch up. The Crown and defence have completed their evidence at the Hockey Canada sex assault trial. Here's what you need to know to catch up. 'This answer reflects an incorrect understanding of what consent actually means in law, and this erroneous conclusion undoubtedly impacted how Det. Newton moved forward from there,' the prosecutors write. The arguments come in a set of filings the Crown has given to Superior Court Justice Maria Carroccia as part of the prosecution's closing submissions, which continue Thursday. Written filings are more common in judge-alone trials. Carroccia is set to deliver her judgment in the case on July 24. The central issue is whether the complainant consented to the sexual activity in the room, with the Crown arguing this week that the players failed to take any reasonable steps to confirm the woman was consenting to each sexual act, and that the woman never made an 'affirmative, voluntary choice.' The complainant had met McLeod at Jack's Bar and returned to his room where they had consensual sex, only for multiple men to come in afterward, some prompted by a group chat text from McLeod about a '3 way.' A screenshot of a group chat involving members of Canada's 2018 world junior championship team. The Crown has alleged that McLeod had intercourse with the complainant a second time in the hotel room's bathroom; that Formenton separately had intercourse with the complainant in the bathroom; that McLeod, Hart and Dubé obtained oral sex from the woman; that Dubé slapped her naked buttocks, and that Foote did the splits over her head while she was on a bedsheet on the ground and his genitals 'grazed' her face — all without her consent. Part of Newton's reasoning that the complainant wasn't too drunk to consent was due to viewing surveillance footage from the Delta hotel lobby, where the complainant is seen walking up and down stairs unaided in heels. He testified that while he also obtained surveillance footage from Jack's, he never viewed it. The prosecutors argue the Jack's footage 'could have (and did) provided evidence' of how much alcohol the complainant drank that night, and 'other indicators of her level of intoxication,' though they don't specify. And although Newton obtained the complainant's clothing from the night in question, he never sent them off for forensic testing, and eventually returned them to her. Finally, Newton 'made only a passive effort' to interview the players who were in room 209 at the Delta, the Crown says. His report indicates that in the summer of 2018, he asked lawyer Danielle Robitaille — who was leading an independent probe into the matter for Hockey Canada — to pass along his message that he was interested in speaking with any players who were willing to talk. (Of the five accused men, the complainant had only been able to identify McLeod and Formenton, who were roommates at the Delta that night.) The players were 'compelled' to sit for an interview with Hockey Canada. But they weren't told the investigator knew police wanted access to her The players were 'compelled' to sit for an interview with Hockey Canada. But they weren't told the investigator knew police wanted access to her He interviewed all of the men on trial except for Hart, although at the time Foote was only treated as a witness to the sexual activity in the room. Newton told them upfront he had no grounds at that point to lay criminal charges. The men who admitted to sexual contact with the woman maintained it was consensual, and that she had been demanding to have sex with players — a version of events the Crown has asked the judge to reject as having been cooked up by the men after the fact. 'Det. Newton did not ask very many questions of the interviewees. Notably, he failed to ask them about whether there was any slapping or if anyone had done the splits on (the complainant), which were things she had reported in her initial police interview. The detective also did not ask any of the interviewees to consider turning over text messages that they referred to,' Cunningham and Donkers state. For example, Formenton told Newton that he had received a text from McLeod about a three-way, but he no longer had it as he had a new phone. But Newton didn't go back to McLeod to ask for that text. In his own interview with Newton, McLeod claimed he didn't know why men kept showing up to the room, and expressly denied that it was in response to messages from him. 'The interviews leave the clear impression that Det. Newton had made up his mind that there would never be grounds for charges (based on his erroneous or incomplete understanding of consent) and that he was conducting these interviews to say that he did, rather than with a genuine interest at getting at the truth,' the Crown argues. London police approached the case from a different angle in 2022: that the complainant only went along with the sexual activity because she was intimidated to be in a room full of men she didn't know, and that they should have known she wasn't actually consenting. One of the few new pieces of evidence was the players' group chat from 2018, which included McLeod's three-way text to his teammates in the early hours of June 19. The chat also included messages sent back and forth between players on June 26, 2018, that the Crown has argued is evidence of the men trying to unite on a false version of events. And because the police now believed they had grounds to lay charges, they obtained a warrant to get Robitaille's file from the Hockey Canada investigation, which included interviews with McLeod, Formenton, and Dube given under penalty of a lifetime ban from Hockey Canada activities if they refused to cooperate. Robitaille didn't tell them the police planned to get a warrant for her files. The men had refused to speak to police in 2022 to maintain their right to silence, but their interviews with Robitaille ended up in the hands of the police anyway. A different judge tossed those statements during pre-trial hearings last year, concluding that the 'unfair and prejudicial' way they were obtained harmed the men's right to a fair trial. Det. Ryan, who led the reopened police probe in 2022, testified as the last witness at trial that the complainant was 'quite upset' when she told her that her allegations were being once again investigated. 'I felt pretty bad because it felt like — I got the sense that I was opening up some wounds that she was trying to close,' Ryan said. Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
