James David Junior Charlie may not have carried out the actual killing but played key roles in the murder of a man who had shown up at a home on the Nakazdli reserve to buy drugs, a Crown prosecutor argued in a closing statement delivered to a jury on Thursday.
From providing the murder weapon and depriving Fribjon Bjornson of his only means of escape to disposing of his body afterward, Charlie was "involved in every step of the way," prosecutor Richard Fernyhough contended.
Charlie is on trial on a count of first-degree murder from the January 2012 death. He has pleaded guilty to indignity to a dead body.
According to the scenario Fernyhough set out for the jury, Bjornson was set upon by Charlie and three others - Wesley Duncan, Jessie Bird and a man whose name is protected by a court-ordered publication ban - and dragged downstairs into the home's basement where he was assaulted over a long period of time.
Once he was beaten unconscious, a decision was made to kill Bjornson and Charlie cut a piece of telephone cable from the basement's ceilings and handed it to Duncan who strangled Bjornson to death, Fernyough submitted.
In interviews upon his arrest in November 2013, Charlie told police Duncan said Bjornson was "halfway dead, let's finish him off," Fernyhough recalled and added Charlie said he handed the cord to Duncan knowing what he was going to do next.
Although Charlie denied watching Duncan carry out the act, telling police he went upstairs, Fernyhough suggested that was a lie. He noted Charlie made a motion with his hands as if tightening a cord as he told his story to police.
During testimony earlier this week, Duncan denied Charlie handed him the cord and maintained the accused was out of the basement when the killing was carried out, in contrast to the story he gave police when first arrested.
Fernyhough contended Duncan's testimony during the trial amounted to a "pack of lies" meant to protect a "brother" he grew up with. Duncan has been sentenced to life in prison without eligibility for parole for 15 years after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in Bjornson's death.
Charlie told police he took Bjornson's truck as soon as the others started dragging him into the basement for an unknown reason and drove it around before parking it at an apartment block on the reserve then walked back to the home a couple of hours later.
Fernyhough dismissed the account as "totally ridiculous."
He said Charlie took the truck either because he knew Bjornson wasn't going to leave the house alive and was getting rid of evidence or was taking away the victim's "only means of escape on a cold winter night on a reservation."
When he was talking to police, Charlie also denied chopping Bjornson's head off during the process of disposing of the body, saying Bird did the work and that he was not "that kind of person."
But in a statement of facts presented to the court, he admitted carrying out the act.
"Clearly, he is that kind of person," Fernyhough said.
He said Charlie only gave admissions to police after he was cornered and continually blamed others and distanced himself from the death.
Fernyhough dismissed as "ridiculous and an insult" Charlie's contention Bjornson was able to get up and take a swing at him when he returned to the home.
If jury members find Charlie handed the cord to Duncan, knowing what he intended to do with it, Fernyhough said he is as "equally guilty as the person who actually committed the crime."
And while Duncan is serving time for second degree murder, Fernyhough said Charlie should be found guilty of first degree because he carried out the act deliberately and with consideration rather than on impulse and because it was carried out in the course of unlawfully confining Bjornson.
Fernyhough said Charlie took Bjornson's truck away from the house as the victim was being dragged into the basement and also punched and kicked him while in the basement.
Defence counsel Danny Markovitz will give his closing argument tomorrow morning at the courthouse.
