The other murder trial that the jury in the Pat Stay case never heard about

CBC

4 hours ago

Editor's note: With the jury cut off from all outside contact and deliberating its verdict against Adam Drake, who is accused of murdering battle rapper Pat Stay, we can now tell you what they didn't hear — and that begins with an entirely different murder trial.
To some, it was just the latest round in a long-festering feud between two rival Halifax crime families. But to the family of the victim, it was the brutal slaying of a young man who was trying to turn his life around.
Either way, the details surrounding the 2016 murder of Tyler Keizer and the corresponding trial meant that when it came time for the trial in the 2022 murder of Dartmouth, N.S., battle rapper Pat Stay, the case proceeded under a smothering blanket of secrecy.
The reason? Adam Drake was the accused in both cases.
The courts wanted to make sure a verdict in the first case wouldn't taint a potential jury in the second.
The secrecy included making sure jurors never saw Drake in handcuffs or prison garb; he was always dressed in a suit and seated with his defence team when the jury entered the courtroom. He was transported each day from the nearby provincial jail in Burnside and given time to change clothes before the trial started at the nearby Nova Scotia Supreme Court, also in Burnside.
Courtroom commotion
When the guilty verdict was handed down in the first case — in October 2024 — Drake, a squat, powerfully built man, couldn't resist taunting the family of his victim, Tyler Keizer.
Just after Justice Timothy Gabriel found Drake guilty of murder, Drake turned in his seat to face the courtroom packed with Keizer's family.
"At least I'm going home someday," he said, which provoked an angry outburst from the crowd that, moments before, had stood and cheered the guilty verdict.
It's something that's reminiscent of the Stay case, where Stay's friends and family have said that Drake made inappropriate gestures toward them on several occasions after the jury was dismissed during the trial.
As the judge tried to continue reading his verdict in the Keizer case, taunts and muttering rippled through the gallery. Drake abruptly stood up and tried to walk out of the courtroom, shouting, "I ain't going to listen to this anymore. I know who did it and I'm innocent." Sheriffs hustled him out of the courtroom and the judge called a short break to allow things to calm down.
When the trial eventually resumed, Gabriel said he was satisfied that the killing, which he described as "an execution-style murder," was first-degree murder. That carries an automatic life sentence. Drake will have to serve 25 years before he can begin applying for parole.
All of this drama took place on a Friday afternoon in November 2024 at his formal sentencing, months after the main part of the trial, held in April 2024.
The Tyler Keizer trial
The Keizer murder was all part of a family feud, testified the Crown's key witness, Morgan Harrington. He was the one who identified Drake as the person who shot and killed Keizer.
The judge and lawyers all described Harrington, somewhat euphemistically, as an "unsavoury" witness. He has a lengthy criminal history involving drugs and violence.
In exchange for agreeing to testify against Drake, several pending charges Harrington faced were erased. And, as Drake's lawyers pointed out, Harrington was also in line for the $150,000 reward from Nova Scotia's major unsolved crimes program.
To be eligible for the reward, a witness must not only be willing to testify, but their testimony must lead to a conviction. That's a high hurdle to clear, which is why few people have been able to collect the reward, even though there are about 120 cases on the list.
Drake's lawyer in that first trial, Stan MacDonald, argued that erasing the charges and offering the reward were more than enough incentive for Harrington to lie.
The Crown introduced evidence to corroborate Harrington's version of events on the night of Nov. 21, 2016, when Keizer was gunned down in a parking lot on Gottingen Street in Halifax. That evidence included cellphone data that showed Drake moving toward the scene of the shooting in the moments leading up to the murder. There was also a security video from an adjacent building that showed the actual shooting.
Why a witness says Keizer was killed
According to Harrington, Keizer was shot because he and another man beat up an inmate when the three of them were together in a federal prison.
Harrington told the court he'd earned the nickname "Too Hot" in middle school because of his hot temper. But none of that temper was on display during his hours in the witness box as he spoke in careful, measured tones about what he knew of the circumstances leading to the shooting.
Harrington said he met Keizer when they were both teens, serving time in the Waterville youth correctional facility in the Annapolis Valley.
"I call him my brother," Harrington said in court. "We did a lot of time together. We were close."
According to Harrington, when Keizer was in the federal prison in Springhill, N.S., Keizer and his cellmate, Matt Munroe, got orders to jump another inmate, Donald Arsenault. Harrington said the orders came from the "higher-ups" on "our side of the gang culture."
When asked to explain, Harrington said Keizer and Munroe were tied to the Marriott family. Arsenault was connected to the Melvins. Arsenault and Drake were friends. It's unclear whether Drake has ties to either group.
Harrington identified as a Marriott, but he said he was that rare individual who had friends on both sides.
The Melvins and the Marriotts
The brazen, execution-style killing of Keizer is reminiscent of other violent acts that have flared up in the long-running feud between the Melvins and the Marriotts.
The two families came out of the Spryfield suburb of Halifax and at least two generations of the families have been involved in the city's drug trade, according to police. Their battle for supremacy has spanned decades and involved murders, kidnapping and gun battles in public places.
One incident in particular galvanized public opinion against the feuding families. In November 2008, gunmen opened fire on an SUV parked in front of the IWK, the Maritimes' only children's hospital. The intended target was Jason Hallett, who had ties to the Melvin family. He was at the hospital to visit his girlfriend and their newborn child. Hallett was shot in the wrist.
'Blaze the Cherokee!'
Police already had some of the suspects in the hospital shooting under surveillance as part of a wider investigation. They were tapping their phones and heard the conversation before the shooting started.
"Blaze the Cherokee! The Cherokee!" one of the suspects could be heard saying, moments before the shooting. Hallett was sitting in the front seat of a Jeep Cherokee when he was shot.
Two men pleaded guilty to charges before a trial. Aaron Marriott pleaded guilty to attempted murder. Shaun Smith pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder. Two other men were also charged in connection with the shooting.
Early the following year, the feud would again explode into the open with the murder of Terry Marriott Jr., one of the highest-profile members of his family. He was shot and killed in the basement of a home in the Halifax suburb of Harrietsfield.
Jimmy Melvin Jr. was charged with Marriott's murder. The case did not go to trial until 2017, when Melvin was acquitted by a jury. Later that same year, however, Melvin was convicted of attempted murder for an earlier plot against Marriott. That conviction, on top of his lengthy criminal history, prompted the Crown to seek a dangerous offender designation against Melvin. The judge granted the designation in January 2021.
A prominent member of the Marriott family has suffered the same fate. Brian James Marriott, better known by his initials B.J., was declared a dangerous offender in March 2024. B.J. Marriott took part in a vicious assault at the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility — the Burnside jail — in December 2019. His conviction for aggravated assault capped a lengthy criminal history. He has spent most of his adult life behind bars.
The dangerous offender designations have sidelined — at least temporarily — two of the men in the feud.
This feud has extended to some of Canada's prisons.
When Harrington was incarcerated at the Renous maximum security prison in northern New Brunswick with Keizer, he said he learned about the Springhill prison attack where Keizer and his cellmate jumped another inmate, Arsenault, directly from Keizer.
When Keizer was released from prison
Harrington told Drake's trial that Keizer was trying to turn his life around when he was released from prison in 2016. And Harrington said he took it upon himself to try to mend fences. Harrington said he approached Drake and asked him about the prison assault on Arsenault. Harrington said Drake told him that he would have to raise it directly with Arsenault, which he did.
It remains an open question whether Harrington was rewarded for his testimony. CBC News put that question to the Nova Scotia Department of Justice, which refused to give a direct answer. However, the Keizer murder was quietly removed from the list of unsolved cases.
In the weeks leading up to the Stay murder trial, Drake's defence team tried to get certain people banned from the courtroom, alleging they'd violated the publication ban and revealed the conviction in the Keizer case.
Another murder
One of those people singled out by the defence was Laura Lee Jennex. Her son, John Newcombe, had been gunned down outside a bar in the Halifax suburb of Clayton Park in June 2012. Newcombe was a tattoo artist and was trying to establish himself as a hip-hop artist. Jennex says her son knew Stay.
While his death is officially listed as unsolved, Jennex is convinced that Adam Drake killed her son. She has attended both the Keizer and Stay trials to show her support for the other two families. When she saw people posting on social media about the Keizer verdict, she reached out to warn them that they were violating the ban. The lawyers argued her warnings constituted violations as well.
To address the problem, Justice Scott Norton opted for a process known as challenge for cause, where prospective jurors in the Stay case were questioned about their prior knowledge of the Keizer case and whether they harboured any biases that might preclude them from giving a fair hearing.
The judge crafted a more elaborate series of questions than is usual in a challenge. About a half-dozen people were screened out before the jury panel was picked to hear the details of Stay's murder.
Trial delayed
The Stay trial was supposed to be held last year with a different defence team. Prominent Halifax defence lawyer Ian Hutchison had joined Michael Lacy on the file. But days before the trial was to begin, Hutchison was appointed a judge of the Nova Scotia provincial court, throwing a wrench into this and several other criminal cases. The trial was postponed to allow Jennifer MacDonald time to get up to speed on the file.
On May 12, 2025, the trial finally began.
The Crown's key piece of evidence is video surveillance from inside the bar on the September 2022 night the Dartmouth battle rapper was stabbed at the Yacht Club Social. It shows Stay with his back to the camera getting into an altercation with someone. He turns around, brushes what appears to be blood from his chest and is then punched. He stumbles to the floor, gets back up and walks out of the camera's view.
Lacy didn't submit any evidence during the trial, but he also told jurors to disregard a Facebook post Drake made a couple of weeks prior to Stay's death, in which he wrote "can't wait to give you a big hug." Lacy said the post says nothing about what happened when Stay was stabbed.
On Tuesday, June 17, the jury started its deliberations to determine what happened in the early hours of Sept. 4, 2022.