Rage (17 page)

Goody then questioned Atilla Bodo, Bogle’s partner, who had already treated Ralston before seeing Johnathon. Bodo saw the body and immediately thought the worst. “He was quite evidently vital signs absent.” The 16-year veteran paramedic noted that one of Johnathon’s eyes had a “fixed, dilated pupil” (not a good sign), while the other eye was swollen shut due to a large gash just above the eyebrow. It was just one of many “large, irregularly shaped lacerations” Bodo noticed on the boy. Although most were on the head and neck, there were also a few defensive wounds on the hands—one finger on his right hand was nearly severed. Those wounds, he testified, did not compare to those on Johnathon’s neck. Bodo told the court that the boy’s trachea was completely severed. He placed a cardiac monitor on Johnathon; it detected no signs of life. Normally, at that point, paramedics give up on trying to revive patients, but because Johnathon was so young, Bodo testified, he made what he called a “last-ditch effort.” He inserted a laryngoscope—a device that allows a medical professional to look down the throat of a patient—into Johnathon’s mouth, but he couldn’t see anything he could recognize. He was shocked to see the light from the scope shining on the opposite wall of the ambulance. Eventually, Bodo desperately inserted the laryngoscope directly into Johnathon’s open throat wound, but it was no use.

Bodo testified that he asked Bogle to call Sunnybrook Hospital at 7:03 to ask for assistance. At 7:07, he said, he had no choice but to declare Johnathon dead.

Earlier, Hung testified that they had just finished “clearing” the house when they received a call that one of the suspects had fled to another address—Tim’s apartment.

One of the other ETF officers who testified that day was Constable William Cook, who actually arrested Tim. He told the court that the team had assembled in Tim’s back yard with shields and shotguns and were ready to break into the house when they were surprised. The back door opened, he said, and the officers could see Tim, with a mobile phone in his hand, just inside the apartment. Cook testified that he repeatedly ordered the boy to put the phone down and put his hands on his head, but Tim ignored him. Instead, the cop said, Tim walked toward the team “with a blank look on his face.”

His actions, Cook said, “forced” the police officer to kick the boy in the ribs to immobilize him. “I wasn’t sure of his mind-set at the time,” he said. Then he paused and added: “I believe it knocked a little wind out of him.” Some of the audience, comparing the hulking cop to the skinny kid, chuckled a little.

Cook also noted that another man—who appeared to him to be in his late 20s—emerged from the apartment and started arguing with and then threatening the officers. He too, was placed under arrest. Tim, according to Hung, identified the older man as his father and told him in front of the police that he had witnessed a murder.

Tim’s defense lawyer, David McCaskill, had little of substance to ask Hung, Cook, Bogle, Bodo or any of the other officers who were at 90 Dawes on November 25. It’s generally considered bad form at a jury trial for a lawyer to contradict or get at all rough with people whose jobs it is to save lives, especially when they have already delivered heart-wrenching testimony. Still, McCaskill did ask Cook if a kick to the ribs was the most appropriate way “to take down a 15-year-old boy.” Unruffled, Cook replied that “under the circumstances,” it was.

Next came the testimony of the officers who arrested Kevin and Pierre. Detective Constable Chris Sherk described his surprise at seeing the suspects “just strolling down the street.” Even as he and his partner approached, Sherk said, Pierre looked “very relaxed—he didn’t seem worried.” Sherk then said he “took physical control” of Pierre and, once he confirmed his identity, placed him under arrest for first-degree murder. He waited for a reaction from the boy, but none came. “It struck me as very strange, like it was no big deal,” the detective testified. “I guess if somebody told me I was under arrest for murder, I might exhibit some emotion.”

Detective Sergeant John Rossano told a very similar story when it came to his arrest of Kevin. When the murder suspect appeared to be “devoid of any reaction,” Rossano decided to make sure Kevin was aware of what was happening to him. “Do you understand what this is about?” Rossano said that he asked Kevin. “Yeah,” he testified Kevin answered. “The death of my brother.”

The next witness to take the stand was Detective Constable Robert Armstrong, from the Toronto Police forensic identification unit. He processed Kevin and Pierre after their arrests. His testimony included photos of the boys from the night of the arrest. Although Kevin was much fatter and had a more aggressive hairstyle in the photo, it was clearly the same boy. Armstrong then showed photos of Kevin’s right hand, which revealed fresh bruising and lacerations on the knuckles and on the heel of the palm. Armstrong testified that Kevin’s wounds were from “fairly recent” activity. He showed photos of both boys’ knees and one of Pierre’s back. His back was covered with a series of deep, reddish welts perpendicular to his spine. At least one courtroom observer I spoke with later admitted that it appeared as though Pierre had been whipped, but Armstrong testified that they were just stretch marks, the result of Pierre growing so quickly that the skin on his back just couldn’t keep up.

Armstrong also catalogued what the boys had on them when they were brought to the police station. Pierre had on a black baseball cap, a black Perry Ellis jacket, a white “Deep in Denial” T-shirt, blue Mecca jeans, plaid boxer shorts and a pair of white K-Swiss sneakers. Kevin wore a similar uniform with a black faux leather jacket, a red “Just Do It” T-shirt, striped boxer shorts, black fleece sweatpants and black and silver Adidas sneakers. Neither boy carried any cash, but Pierre had a monthly student bus pass in his black nylon wallet and a house key.

Armstrong noted that both T-shirts were stained with a dark substance, which, he testified, “I took to be blood.”

As was the case with the other police officers, Armstrong testified that he was surprised by the boys’ lack of reaction to their situation. He described them as “compliant and cooperative” and said, “they seemed unconcerned” about their predicament.

Armstrong’s colleague from the forensic identification unit, Rick McKeown, took the stand the next day. The leader of the crime scene investigators at 90 Dawes, McKeown showed the court a number of photos of the scene and evidence found there. He began his testimony with a description of the deep pool of clotted blood he found at the bottom of the stairs and the spatters of blood on the adjacent walls. “It all appeared to be low to the ground,” he said.

Next to the pool, he spotted two stacks of white plastic chairs. On top of one of them was what he described as “a large hunting knife” with a black handle.

Throughout the basement, he noted broken glass, mostly green but some clear, some with labels identifying them as pieces of beer bottles still attached. On the glass, he noted a great deal more blood. “My opinion was the glass was broken before the blood got deposited on it,” he testified. McKeown also noted mustard splatter marks throughout the basement and a TV that had recently been smashed in.

Upstairs in the house, in the front hallway near the main entrance, McKeown testified that there were two baseball bats—one wood, one aluminum—resting against a wall. “There appeared to be blood spatters on both,” he said, noting that the aluminum one was much bloodier. He also pointed out that there was mustard on both of the bats. Beside them, on the carpet, was another blood spatter.

A thorough search of the house revealed a large, notched meat cleaver partially sticking out from under the living room couch, a green butcher knife in the kitchen beside a series of more blood spatters and a bloody towel in the blood-stained main floor bathroom sink.

He revealed that there were no identifiable fingerprints of any of the suspects on the bats, knives or meat cleaver.

On the following day, McKeown showed the court a photograph of the faded jeans Johnathon was wearing the day he was killed. On them he pointed out a number of mustard stains that matched the mustard spatters in the basement. He then moved on and pointed just above the left knee and said, “On the center portion of the left leg, we see brownish red discoloration, which appears to be dried blood.”

That was too much for Joanne, who had been very composed up to this point. The sight of her dead son’s tiny jeans—ones she had handled countless times before—stained with his own blood and the mustard from the boys’ rampage hit her hard. Maybe she was picturing him being dragged over the broken glass or maybe it just reminded her that her boy was gone, but it caused her to break down. She was taken from the courtroom in tears.

She didn’t have to see the next exhibit, which was Ralston’s shredded winter jacket. It may well have saved his life when it absorbed the force of the butcher knife Kevin had thrust at his heart.

After a break for the holidays, court resumed on January 4, 2006. The first witness called was Robert Gerard of the Center of Forensic Sciences. The Center, operated by Ontario’s Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services, is a central facility for forensics and is used for both criminal and civil cases. He testified that the mustard found on the floor, the bats, and Johnathon’s pants matched the stains found on Kevin’s pants and Pierre’s pants and left shoe. He also said it was the same mustard found on Tim’s shoes, T-shirt and pants.

With most of the physical forensics out of the way, the prosecution started to paint pictures of the personalities of the people involved. The first was a girl—we’ll call her Katie—who claimed to have been Kevin’s girlfriend. She was nice-looking enough, but not as well turned out as Ashley and her friends. She wore tight jeans, a turtleneck and hoop earrings, which she could not stop fiddling with.

Goody asked her if she was nervous. Katie giggled and said she was. He asked her how long she had known Kevin. “We started going out in Grade 8,” she told him.