Friday, January 27, 2012
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Wednesday, November 02, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Taxing nights behind the wheel
From the Queen's Journal:
Kingston taxi driver Mordeen Bondett opens up about her nights on the road
By Terra-Ann Arnone, Features Editor
Mordeen Bondett said her worst experience as a Kingston taxi driver was with a Queen’s student last year.
"He told me that I was just a servant," the seven-year Amey’s taxi veteran said. "He told me that he judged a person by what they did for a living and what I did for a living wasn’t respectable."
The mother of two teared up and turned away from me as she spoke.
"Maybe I shouldn’t talk about this," she said. "All I’ll say is that at that time, two of our drivers had PhDs."
Bondett, who works the 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift, let me ride along with her on Saturday night.
Her car had a surveillance camera installed on the windshield five years ago after studies in Winnipeg and Chicago found that video surveillance was the most successful method for taxi driver protection.
The cameras, which run about $1,700 each, take a picture of customers as they step in the cab and will record video if the driver touches an emergency button beside the steering wheel.
"I was personally against this in the beginning," she said. "I didn’t want my children to see me attacked or killed on camera."
Her outlook changed after a night-time encounter with two men.
"One was wearing a zip-up black sweater in the middle of summer and it tipped me off that something might be wrong," she said.
Bondett watched in the rear-view mirror as the man unzipped his sweater and reached into the breast pocket.
Before she could turn the camera on, the other man said, "I don’t want to do anything that will land me back in jail."
The customers asked Bondett to stop the car, paid their fare and left.
"Now I’m glad we have the cameras because our customers are aware of them and behave differently," Bondett said.
When the emergency button is pressed and the surveillance camera is activated, a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks the driver’s whereabouts and sends all available taxis to their aid.
She said people are often concerned about a woman driving alone at night.
"You can be afraid of the daylight too," Bondett said.
In 2007, Amey’s driver David Krick was stabbed to death inside his cab at 7 a.m.
"I can’t begin to imagine," she said. "I just have to keep myself strong and alert."
Taxi fares are standardized by the Kingston Taxi Commission, with current rates at $2.85 for the first 77 metres of travel and $0.10 for every 77 metres after that.
Amey’s taxi owns 20 per cent of their fleet, with the remaining cars owned privately by drivers. Bondett doesn’t own the cab she drives.
Drivers who don’t own their own cars make 42 per cent commission off fares. Cab owners bring 100 per cent of fare money home.
"Many students don’t realize that a good portion of our income depends on tips," she said. "Some of the drivers resent the fact that students don’t tip as well."
Bondett averages $2 to $5 in tips per ride.
"I find that most students are friendly, polite and grateful," she said. "But occasionally you have students who forget we’re human beings too."
Bondett keeps plastic bags, bandaids, Kleenex and gum in her car for customers.
"I stock up on plastic bags during Frosh Week and Homecoming," she said. "That’s when most people vomit."
When someone vomits in a cab, a driver can clean it themselves and continue with their shift or send it in for cleaning and forego a night’s wages. Clean-up incurs an $80 charge for the passenger.
"I’m impressed with students who bring their own plastic bags," Bondett said.
The Kleenex is mainly for students coming back from the train station after a holiday at home, Bondett said.
"I can go through a number of Kleenex boxes, especially after Thanksgiving," she said. "That’s when all the breakups happen."
Bondett said she’s noticed differences between Queen’s students and students from Royal Military College and St. Lawrence College.
"I find the university students, maybe because they’re here longer, feel like the city is more their’s," she said. "Whereas the college students are here for shorter periods and act more like guests.
"I always try to treat customers the way I would want my children treated," she said.
Bondett is asked frequently if she is an ex-convict by students during Frosh Week.
"It’s a rumour that runs rampant," she said. "There is no taxi driver in Kingston that is an ex-con."
The Kingston Taxi Commission mandates that all drivers undergo a criminal record check through the Canadian Police Information Centre.
Bondett works a 12-hour shift five times a week.
"I do it so that I can eat," she said. "But if you’re out here for 12 hours at a time, enjoying your job really helps — and I do."
Having a bad night — usually one involving vomit, an unpaid fare or mistreatment — can take a toll on drivers, Bondett said.
"One bad customer takes two [good customers] to erase it from your mind," she said. "One to show you that they’re not all bad and another to wash away the hurt."
Kingston taxi driver Mordeen Bondett opens up about her nights on the road
By Terra-Ann Arnone, Features Editor
Mordeen Bondett said her worst experience as a Kingston taxi driver was with a Queen’s student last year.
"He told me that I was just a servant," the seven-year Amey’s taxi veteran said. "He told me that he judged a person by what they did for a living and what I did for a living wasn’t respectable."
The mother of two teared up and turned away from me as she spoke.
"Maybe I shouldn’t talk about this," she said. "All I’ll say is that at that time, two of our drivers had PhDs."
Bondett, who works the 4 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift, let me ride along with her on Saturday night.
Her car had a surveillance camera installed on the windshield five years ago after studies in Winnipeg and Chicago found that video surveillance was the most successful method for taxi driver protection.
The cameras, which run about $1,700 each, take a picture of customers as they step in the cab and will record video if the driver touches an emergency button beside the steering wheel.
"I was personally against this in the beginning," she said. "I didn’t want my children to see me attacked or killed on camera."
Her outlook changed after a night-time encounter with two men.
"One was wearing a zip-up black sweater in the middle of summer and it tipped me off that something might be wrong," she said.
Bondett watched in the rear-view mirror as the man unzipped his sweater and reached into the breast pocket.
Before she could turn the camera on, the other man said, "I don’t want to do anything that will land me back in jail."
The customers asked Bondett to stop the car, paid their fare and left.
"Now I’m glad we have the cameras because our customers are aware of them and behave differently," Bondett said.
When the emergency button is pressed and the surveillance camera is activated, a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracks the driver’s whereabouts and sends all available taxis to their aid.
She said people are often concerned about a woman driving alone at night.
"You can be afraid of the daylight too," Bondett said.
In 2007, Amey’s driver David Krick was stabbed to death inside his cab at 7 a.m.
"I can’t begin to imagine," she said. "I just have to keep myself strong and alert."
Taxi fares are standardized by the Kingston Taxi Commission, with current rates at $2.85 for the first 77 metres of travel and $0.10 for every 77 metres after that.
Amey’s taxi owns 20 per cent of their fleet, with the remaining cars owned privately by drivers. Bondett doesn’t own the cab she drives.
Drivers who don’t own their own cars make 42 per cent commission off fares. Cab owners bring 100 per cent of fare money home.
"Many students don’t realize that a good portion of our income depends on tips," she said. "Some of the drivers resent the fact that students don’t tip as well."
Bondett averages $2 to $5 in tips per ride.
"I find that most students are friendly, polite and grateful," she said. "But occasionally you have students who forget we’re human beings too."
Bondett keeps plastic bags, bandaids, Kleenex and gum in her car for customers.
"I stock up on plastic bags during Frosh Week and Homecoming," she said. "That’s when most people vomit."
When someone vomits in a cab, a driver can clean it themselves and continue with their shift or send it in for cleaning and forego a night’s wages. Clean-up incurs an $80 charge for the passenger.
"I’m impressed with students who bring their own plastic bags," Bondett said.
The Kleenex is mainly for students coming back from the train station after a holiday at home, Bondett said.
"I can go through a number of Kleenex boxes, especially after Thanksgiving," she said. "That’s when all the breakups happen."
Bondett said she’s noticed differences between Queen’s students and students from Royal Military College and St. Lawrence College.
"I find the university students, maybe because they’re here longer, feel like the city is more their’s," she said. "Whereas the college students are here for shorter periods and act more like guests.
"I always try to treat customers the way I would want my children treated," she said.
Bondett is asked frequently if she is an ex-convict by students during Frosh Week.
"It’s a rumour that runs rampant," she said. "There is no taxi driver in Kingston that is an ex-con."
The Kingston Taxi Commission mandates that all drivers undergo a criminal record check through the Canadian Police Information Centre.
Bondett works a 12-hour shift five times a week.
"I do it so that I can eat," she said. "But if you’re out here for 12 hours at a time, enjoying your job really helps — and I do."
Having a bad night — usually one involving vomit, an unpaid fare or mistreatment — can take a toll on drivers, Bondett said.
"One bad customer takes two [good customers] to erase it from your mind," she said. "One to show you that they’re not all bad and another to wash away the hurt."
Monday, July 25, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Thursday, March 03, 2011
Man not responsible for stabbing cab driver
From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:
A 25-year-old man, who stabbed an Amey's cab driver for no apparent reason in November 2009 and then stole his taxi, has been declared not criminally responsible for his crimes by reason of mental illness.
Timothy L. McGonegal was arraigned in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice Monday on charges of attempted murder, stealing a car while armed with a knife, dangerous driving and violating probation by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
Defence lawyer Dave Crowe entered pleas of not guilty on McGonegal's behalf on the basis that he could not be held criminally responsible for his actions.
Assistant Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis then tendered the video statement that McGonegal gave to police after his arrest and invited Justice Rommel Masse to make a finding that he did commit the acts that gave rise to the charges. A short hearing followed to determine whether McGonegal could be held criminally responsible for his actions. Masse ultimately concluded he couldn't.
Laarhuis told the judge that following the Nov. 4, 2009, attack, a Kingston Police detective broached the subject of counselling with cab driver John Barnes, the stabbing victim. Barnes said he was aware of the dangers inherent to his occupation, the prosecutor told the court, and said he was going back to work.
He just wanted to know why he was stabbed, Laarhuis told the judge, because he said it was so unnecessary.
"Sadly," Laarhuis disclosed, Barnes died early in January from cancer.
The morning he crossed paths with McGonegal, the prosecutor related, Barnes was parked on the Kingston Centre lot waiting for a fare. Laarhuis told the judge that McGonegal showed up at 3:10 a.m., headed directly to Barnes's cab, leaned in and asked if Barnes could drive him to Napanee.
The cab driver agreed. Mc-Gonegal got into the front passenger seat and Barnes called his dispatcher for the flat rate -- $65. Then, after the cab had pulled out, McGonegal asked Barnes if he accepted debit.
Laarhuis said it's company policy to get the money up front, so Barnes pulled onto another lot at Princess and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard, but as he reached for the debit machine, McGonegal plunged a knife into the centre of his chest without warning.
Masse was told the blade went in about an inch, but Laarhuis said the doctors who treated him believe it failed to penetrate Barnes's heart because the blade was deflected by his sternum.
Laarhuis said Barnes started to tell McGonegal that he'd just begun his shift and had no money, at the same time reaching for the door handle to escape, but his hand slipped.
According to the prosecutor, McGonegal responded by pushing harder on the knife, which at that point was still embedded in Barnes's chest. He ordered the cab driver to get out of his cab.
Laarhuis said Barnes later recalled that he half stepped and half stumbled out the driver's side door and found himself standing at the rear of his cab watching McGonegal slide across the seat and get behind the wheel. Mc-Gonegal then sped north on Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and Barnes used his cellphone to call his dispatcher for help.
Not long after that, police found the taxi in a ditch off the west-bound ramp to Hwy. 401. McGonegal was on foot, about 300 metres west of the abandoned cab, walking along the south side of the highway.
Laarhuis said Kingston Police questioned him after his arrest and McGonegal told them where he'd thrown the knife out the cab's window after the stabbing. Masse was told that a blue and silver folding knife with a 3 1/2-inch blade was later recovered.
That information came in one of the rare moments, however, when McGonegal was both responsive and relatively lucid.
When he was subsequently in-t erviewed, Laarhuis told the judge McGonegal talked about secret societies, his need to get in touch with his "heritage" as a member of a race apart from the rest of us, and "vampires of Ohio" among other themes.
McGonegal even declared, at one point, that "the universe needs dead bodies ... strung across the universe" to protect the earth from the effects of a thinning ozone layer. He suggested the human shield effect could best be accomplished by people swallowing TNT.
When his police interviewer asked him if his victim was a selection or random, McGonegal replied, "honestly ma'am, just happened to be the unfortunate one," and when she invited him to describe what happened between him and the cab driver, he told her "I broke," but he quickly went on to claim he was a Hells Angel and made a series of cryptic and seemingly random remarks.
Later in the interview, Mc-Gonegal compared himself to the fictional villain Hannibal Lecter and claimed to be a cannibal. He then went on to complain about being tortured and about having a chip implanted somewhere in his body that controlled his behaviour.
Laarhuis told the judge Mc-Gonegal has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and added that "he's had very active symptoms" since about May 2009.
Consequently, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Hucker was asked by the Crown attorney's office to conduct a psychiatric evaluation for the court. It was Dave Crowe who called the doctor to the witness stand, however, and under questioning by him, Hucker testified that when he met Mc-Gonegal at Providence Continuing Care last November, what struck him was "a very prominent thought disorder," characterized by disorganized ideas and individual words imbued with special potency or underlying meanings unique to McGonegal.
The doctor said there's also a medical history, provided primarily by the man's father, of his deterioration through 2009, "but I think he's been ill a lot longer than that," Hucker told the court.
He also calculated that by the time he interviewed McGonegal, nine months had passed since the court ordered that he receive treatment. He was on anti-psychotic drugs, Hucker said, but he saw little improvement and told the judge, "he has shown no insight into his illness."
"What we're getting now are variations on why he did what he did," he told the judge. "He's drawing on his delusions for explanations."
Hucker said he had no doubts McGonegal was delusional when he stabbed a complete stranger.
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2011 The Whig Standard
A 25-year-old man, who stabbed an Amey's cab driver for no apparent reason in November 2009 and then stole his taxi, has been declared not criminally responsible for his crimes by reason of mental illness.
Timothy L. McGonegal was arraigned in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice Monday on charges of attempted murder, stealing a car while armed with a knife, dangerous driving and violating probation by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
Defence lawyer Dave Crowe entered pleas of not guilty on McGonegal's behalf on the basis that he could not be held criminally responsible for his actions.
Assistant Crown attorney Gerard Laarhuis then tendered the video statement that McGonegal gave to police after his arrest and invited Justice Rommel Masse to make a finding that he did commit the acts that gave rise to the charges. A short hearing followed to determine whether McGonegal could be held criminally responsible for his actions. Masse ultimately concluded he couldn't.
Laarhuis told the judge that following the Nov. 4, 2009, attack, a Kingston Police detective broached the subject of counselling with cab driver John Barnes, the stabbing victim. Barnes said he was aware of the dangers inherent to his occupation, the prosecutor told the court, and said he was going back to work.
He just wanted to know why he was stabbed, Laarhuis told the judge, because he said it was so unnecessary.
"Sadly," Laarhuis disclosed, Barnes died early in January from cancer.
The morning he crossed paths with McGonegal, the prosecutor related, Barnes was parked on the Kingston Centre lot waiting for a fare. Laarhuis told the judge that McGonegal showed up at 3:10 a.m., headed directly to Barnes's cab, leaned in and asked if Barnes could drive him to Napanee.
The cab driver agreed. Mc-Gonegal got into the front passenger seat and Barnes called his dispatcher for the flat rate -- $65. Then, after the cab had pulled out, McGonegal asked Barnes if he accepted debit.
Laarhuis said it's company policy to get the money up front, so Barnes pulled onto another lot at Princess and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard, but as he reached for the debit machine, McGonegal plunged a knife into the centre of his chest without warning.
Masse was told the blade went in about an inch, but Laarhuis said the doctors who treated him believe it failed to penetrate Barnes's heart because the blade was deflected by his sternum.
Laarhuis said Barnes started to tell McGonegal that he'd just begun his shift and had no money, at the same time reaching for the door handle to escape, but his hand slipped.
According to the prosecutor, McGonegal responded by pushing harder on the knife, which at that point was still embedded in Barnes's chest. He ordered the cab driver to get out of his cab.
Laarhuis said Barnes later recalled that he half stepped and half stumbled out the driver's side door and found himself standing at the rear of his cab watching McGonegal slide across the seat and get behind the wheel. Mc-Gonegal then sped north on Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and Barnes used his cellphone to call his dispatcher for help.
Not long after that, police found the taxi in a ditch off the west-bound ramp to Hwy. 401. McGonegal was on foot, about 300 metres west of the abandoned cab, walking along the south side of the highway.
Laarhuis said Kingston Police questioned him after his arrest and McGonegal told them where he'd thrown the knife out the cab's window after the stabbing. Masse was told that a blue and silver folding knife with a 3 1/2-inch blade was later recovered.
That information came in one of the rare moments, however, when McGonegal was both responsive and relatively lucid.
When he was subsequently in-t erviewed, Laarhuis told the judge McGonegal talked about secret societies, his need to get in touch with his "heritage" as a member of a race apart from the rest of us, and "vampires of Ohio" among other themes.
McGonegal even declared, at one point, that "the universe needs dead bodies ... strung across the universe" to protect the earth from the effects of a thinning ozone layer. He suggested the human shield effect could best be accomplished by people swallowing TNT.
When his police interviewer asked him if his victim was a selection or random, McGonegal replied, "honestly ma'am, just happened to be the unfortunate one," and when she invited him to describe what happened between him and the cab driver, he told her "I broke," but he quickly went on to claim he was a Hells Angel and made a series of cryptic and seemingly random remarks.
Later in the interview, Mc-Gonegal compared himself to the fictional villain Hannibal Lecter and claimed to be a cannibal. He then went on to complain about being tortured and about having a chip implanted somewhere in his body that controlled his behaviour.
Laarhuis told the judge Mc-Gonegal has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and added that "he's had very active symptoms" since about May 2009.
Consequently, forensic psychiatrist Dr. Stephen Hucker was asked by the Crown attorney's office to conduct a psychiatric evaluation for the court. It was Dave Crowe who called the doctor to the witness stand, however, and under questioning by him, Hucker testified that when he met Mc-Gonegal at Providence Continuing Care last November, what struck him was "a very prominent thought disorder," characterized by disorganized ideas and individual words imbued with special potency or underlying meanings unique to McGonegal.
The doctor said there's also a medical history, provided primarily by the man's father, of his deterioration through 2009, "but I think he's been ill a lot longer than that," Hucker told the court.
He also calculated that by the time he interviewed McGonegal, nine months had passed since the court ordered that he receive treatment. He was on anti-psychotic drugs, Hucker said, but he saw little improvement and told the judge, "he has shown no insight into his illness."
"What we're getting now are variations on why he did what he did," he told the judge. "He's drawing on his delusions for explanations."
Hucker said he had no doubts McGonegal was delusional when he stabbed a complete stranger.
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2011 The Whig Standard
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Skipping out on cab fares proves costly for man, 46
From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:
A 46-year old man who developed an aversion to paying for his taxi rides has been sentenced to jail for 26 days and placed on probation for a year.
In addition, Samuel W. Parkinson was ordered Friday to pay the $383.90 he owes taxi drivers in Kingston and Ottawa after he pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontar io Court of Justice to two counts of transportation fraud and violating a police-issued release undertaking by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
Justice Judith Beaman was told that Parkinson committed the first fraud on March 16 when he hired a Blue Line Taxi in Ottawa and had the cabbie drive him to Gananoque.
Upon arrival, however, Parkinson got out of the cab and disappeared into Gananoque's Bell Tower Mall, according to assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada, leaving the cab driver on the hook for the $370 fare.
Skoropada said Parkinson was subsequently arrested for the crime but police released him without requiring him to seek bail from a justice of the peace. Instead, he signed an undertaking agreeing to obey the law while waiting for his day in court.
On Nov. 1, however, Beaman was told Parkinson repeated his crime, albeit for a much smaller amount, this time with an Amey's Taxi in Kingston.
Skoropada said Parkinson took a trip from Division Street to College Street, running up $13.90 on the meter. The judge was told he was more brazen the second time around, however. When he got to where he wanted to go, Skoropada said, he got out of the cab, told the driver, "I'm not paying," and left.
As a result, Parkinson ended up spending 34 days in pretrial custody before entering his pleas and his defence lawyer, John Dillon, said his client's wife finally decided she'd had enough and left him.
Dillon also told the judge Parkinson suffered abuse as a youth in the Maritimes and is currently in therapy where "he hopes to get to the bottom of his criminal behaviour."
Parkinson had been in Ottawa looking for a job, according to his lawyer, when he committed the first fraud.
Dillon said his client didn't have any money to get home to Brockville but he hoped when he got into the cab in Ottawa that a friend in Gananoque would pay for his ride. Unfortunately, the friend wasn't home, according to Dillon.
The defence lawyer offered no explanation for his client's reprisal of the offence last month but the judge was assured that Parkinson wants to make restitution.
"I want to get out and grab this right by the horns and get my life straightened out," Parkinson told her.
Beaman agreed to accept the lawyers' joint recommendation on sentencing, but she didn't sound optimistic.
"You have an unbelievably bad record," she told him, for like offences, violence and drugs.
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
A 46-year old man who developed an aversion to paying for his taxi rides has been sentenced to jail for 26 days and placed on probation for a year.
In addition, Samuel W. Parkinson was ordered Friday to pay the $383.90 he owes taxi drivers in Kingston and Ottawa after he pleaded guilty in Kingston's Ontar io Court of Justice to two counts of transportation fraud and violating a police-issued release undertaking by failing to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
Justice Judith Beaman was told that Parkinson committed the first fraud on March 16 when he hired a Blue Line Taxi in Ottawa and had the cabbie drive him to Gananoque.
Upon arrival, however, Parkinson got out of the cab and disappeared into Gananoque's Bell Tower Mall, according to assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada, leaving the cab driver on the hook for the $370 fare.
Skoropada said Parkinson was subsequently arrested for the crime but police released him without requiring him to seek bail from a justice of the peace. Instead, he signed an undertaking agreeing to obey the law while waiting for his day in court.
On Nov. 1, however, Beaman was told Parkinson repeated his crime, albeit for a much smaller amount, this time with an Amey's Taxi in Kingston.
Skoropada said Parkinson took a trip from Division Street to College Street, running up $13.90 on the meter. The judge was told he was more brazen the second time around, however. When he got to where he wanted to go, Skoropada said, he got out of the cab, told the driver, "I'm not paying," and left.
As a result, Parkinson ended up spending 34 days in pretrial custody before entering his pleas and his defence lawyer, John Dillon, said his client's wife finally decided she'd had enough and left him.
Dillon also told the judge Parkinson suffered abuse as a youth in the Maritimes and is currently in therapy where "he hopes to get to the bottom of his criminal behaviour."
Parkinson had been in Ottawa looking for a job, according to his lawyer, when he committed the first fraud.
Dillon said his client didn't have any money to get home to Brockville but he hoped when he got into the cab in Ottawa that a friend in Gananoque would pay for his ride. Unfortunately, the friend wasn't home, according to Dillon.
The defence lawyer offered no explanation for his client's reprisal of the offence last month but the judge was assured that Parkinson wants to make restitution.
"I want to get out and grab this right by the horns and get my life straightened out," Parkinson told her.
Beaman agreed to accept the lawyers' joint recommendation on sentencing, but she didn't sound optimistic.
"You have an unbelievably bad record," she told him, for like offences, violence and drugs.
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
Monday, December 06, 2010
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Letter to the Taxi Commission
Please click here to read a letter to the Taxi Commission from our editor, Roy Ambury.
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Crown drops accessory charge
From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:
By Sue Yanagisawa
A charge of accessory after the fact to murder was withdrawn Monday in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice against the girlfriend of Richard E. Smith, three days after Smith was found not guilty of the 2007 murder of Kingston cab driver David Krick.
Laura Clow, 42, was present in the 117 Carruthers Ave. apartment she shared with Smith, 34, on the night of June 17, 2007, when Kingston Police tried to force their way in to prevent what they believed was the destruction of evidence.
About 16 hours after the murder, Smith's neighbours told police about seeing a man in his apartment's bathroom burning what they believed -- and what subsequently proved to be -- strips of cloth.
It was Clow, wearing only pyja ma bottoms, who finally opened the apartment door to officers past midnight that night after they tried to kick it in, having had no luck with banging on doors and windows and loudly announcing their presence. Jurors at Smith's trial were told Smith and Clow were the only occupants of the apartment.
Smith, a parolee at the time, was still subject until late November 2007 to a four-year, eight-month sentence for the knifepoint abduction, sexual assault and robbery of a woman in Milton, Ont. He wasn't charged with the fatal stabbing of 50-year-old David Krick until October 2007, when he was already back in custody on an unrelated charge.
Clow was soon after charged with being an accessory after the fact to the murder, although there were indications during Smith's trial that they were estranged by then.
With his jury acquittal at the end of a five-week trial in Superio r Court, however, assistant Crown attorney Janet O'Brien said in withdrawing the charge against Clow that there was no prospect of a conviction.
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
By Sue Yanagisawa
A charge of accessory after the fact to murder was withdrawn Monday in Kingston's Ontario Court of Justice against the girlfriend of Richard E. Smith, three days after Smith was found not guilty of the 2007 murder of Kingston cab driver David Krick.
Laura Clow, 42, was present in the 117 Carruthers Ave. apartment she shared with Smith, 34, on the night of June 17, 2007, when Kingston Police tried to force their way in to prevent what they believed was the destruction of evidence.
About 16 hours after the murder, Smith's neighbours told police about seeing a man in his apartment's bathroom burning what they believed -- and what subsequently proved to be -- strips of cloth.
It was Clow, wearing only pyja ma bottoms, who finally opened the apartment door to officers past midnight that night after they tried to kick it in, having had no luck with banging on doors and windows and loudly announcing their presence. Jurors at Smith's trial were told Smith and Clow were the only occupants of the apartment.
Smith, a parolee at the time, was still subject until late November 2007 to a four-year, eight-month sentence for the knifepoint abduction, sexual assault and robbery of a woman in Milton, Ont. He wasn't charged with the fatal stabbing of 50-year-old David Krick until October 2007, when he was already back in custody on an unrelated charge.
Clow was soon after charged with being an accessory after the fact to the murder, although there were indications during Smith's trial that they were estranged by then.
With his jury acquittal at the end of a five-week trial in Superio r Court, however, assistant Crown attorney Janet O'Brien said in withdrawing the charge against Clow that there was no prospect of a conviction.
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Jury finds man not guilty
From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:
By Sue Yanagisawa
After three years behind bars awaiting trial, the man accused of murdering Amey's taxi driver David Krick is free.
Richard Edmund Smith, 34, was tried for second-degree murder over the past five weeks in Superior Court in connection with Krick's June 2007 stabbing death.
Friday morning, at 11:07, the foreman of his jury stood and announced that the verdict was not guilty.
The victim's family, sitting in the spectators' benches, looked shocked.
They believe the right man was on trial: Krick's 73-year-old mother, Shirley Krick, fought tears and his sister Brenda's jaw literally dropped upon hearing the words, while her brother, Raymond, and sister-in-law, Robyn Lawlor, sat silent.
Staff Sgt. Bill Kennedy of the Kingston Police clearly disagreed with the jury's verdict.
Kennedy headed the police department's major case unit at the time of Krick's murder on June 17, 2007, and led the investigation that resulted in Smith's arrest four months later.
After the jury and Justice Douglas Belch left the court, as officers went to the prisoner's dock to remove Smith's handcuffs and leg shackles, Kennedy exploded. Addressing himself to Const. Jim Lindsay, the police officer assigned to court house security, Kennedy growled: "Let him go. Let the killer go, Jimmy."
"I'm absolutely disgusted," Kennedy then announced, adding to Smith: "Go out and do it again."
As Smith left the Frontenac County Court House with his lawyers and walked through the parking lot, Kennedy called after him to enjoy his freedom because David Krick won't be enjoying his. Smith, head down, didn't respond.
Krick's family had already left, walking slowly but with dignity away from the court house, their disappointment palpable.
Even Smith's lawyer, Mary-Jane Kingston was touched by their situation, observing that Shirley Krick and her daughter are "wonderful people."
The two women faithfully attended almost every day of Smith's preliminary hearing and trial, absenting themselves only during those parts that involved graphic evidence of the injuries sustained by their son and brother.
Jury deliberations in Canada are secret, so no one will ever know how the verdict was reached, but before they were sequestered Thursday night and taken to a local hotel, jurors had sent notes to the judge five times requesting a recap of specific bits of witness testimony.
Their sixth and final question, asking what Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton said Smith was wearing when she was out with him the night of June 16, 2007, into the early hours of June 17, was answered by Belch at 10:35 a.m. yesterday, 20 minutes before they arrived at their verdict.
Belch told them Martin-Chatterton testified, "he was wearing a sweater. I don't recall the colour. It was like a knit sweater. It had sleeves."
Both lawyers and the judge had already told jurors that the case would come down to a matter of identity and credibility. The forensic evidence gathered during the investigation provided no direct link between Smith and the murdered taxi driver.
The Crown presented a largely circumstantial case that placed Smith a few blocks from the spot where Krick's stolen taxi was found a little less than an hour after its discovery.
There were also two instances of Smith's conduct the day of the murder that, in the estimation of police and assistant Crown attorneys John Skoropada and Elisabeth Foxton, cast him in a suspicious light: Smith's ready and uncorroborated explanation for his presence on Palace Road between 7:28 and 7:43 a.m. on a Father's Day Sunday and his burning of strips of cloth in his bathroom for over an hour with the lights off later that night.
Key pieces of the Crown's case were also problematic. The identification of Smith in the prisoner's dock at trial by Const. Lester Tang, was weakened by his failure to make it earlier at the preliminary hearing.
Tang said that Smith was the man he'd seen running from the parking lot off Macpherson Avenue where Krick's taxi was found minutes before 7 a.m. the morning of the murder. But he also described that man as having a round face and appearing well fed when other witnesses who knew Smith at the time said he was skinny and looked like a drug user.
Likewise, Holly Holland, a recovering crack cocaine addict, who called in an anonymous tip to Amey's Taxi stand implicating Smith in the murder on June 30, 2007, admitted she was on a drug binge with him when he confessed the murder to her.
Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Leslie, suggested to jurors her mind and memory played tricks on her in her drug-addled condition and implied, in the alternative, that a criminal charge against her was dropped in Nova Scotia after she gave her statement.
He never put that question to Holland, however, suggesting it instead to Staff Sgt. Kennedy, who testified he wasn't aware the charge had been dropped.
There were things that the jurors weren't allowed to know during the trial.
Defence lawyer Leslie questioned both Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, the woman who'd been with Smith the night before the murder and into the early hours of that Father's Day Sunday, and Holly Holland, who said she'd bought drugs from him and done drugs with him a number of times, about their impressions of his client's character.
Both agreed with Leslie they'd never seen his client with a knife. Martin-Chatterton also agreed that he'd always been "courteous" around her. Holland, when asked if she'd ever seen him violent or threatening said, "no".
There was no indication that either witness would have known -- and the jury wasn't told -- that Smith, who's originally from Hamilton, has been violent in the past.
He was convicted in 2003, in Milton, after he accosted a woman in the parking lot of a donut shop, forced her into her car at knifepoint, drove to a secluded spot and sexually assaulted her. Afterward, he forced his victim to drive to an ATM and withdraw cash for him from her account before he let her go.
He still hadn't completed the four-year, eight-month sentence he received for sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, robbery, possession of property obtained by crime and driving while disqualified in October 2007 when he was charged with Krick's murder, and he wouldn't complete it until a month later on Nov. 30, 2007.
Nor was that Smith's first crime. His record dates to 1993 and includes property crimes, six convictions for failing to comply with conditions attached to various forms of release, impaired driving and domestic violence.
Jurors were told during his trial that Smith was hanging out in bars, using and selling drugs and cheating on his girlfriend. They weren't told that he was on parole, with conditions that prohibited him from drinking or using drugs and required him to report all of his intimate relationships because of his history of domestic violence.
The jury additionally wasn't told about the arguments in their absence, that the numerous delays -- with the exception of a three-day voir dire, a trial within a trial, on the admissibility of evidence -- were to accommodate defence lawyer Leslie. Nor did they know that he'd intended to make an issue in his closing argument of the Crown's decision not to call Smith's girlfriend at the time of the murder as a witness.
Leslie argued, in the absence of the jury, that Laura Clow, who shared the apartment at 117 Carruthers Ave. with Smith and was present when police seized burned cloth from their apartment's bathroom was "an important witness," but he chose not to put her on the stand himself.
Justice Belch ultimately forbid Leslie from suggesting the Crown was remiss in not calling Clow and told him if his order was ignored he would instruct them not to speculate on evidence they had not heard.
Jurors also didn't know that on Oct. 29, the Friday they were left in their jury room for almost seven hours without an explanation, it was because Leslie was talking to his client about pleading guilty to the homicide in return for a deal on sentencing.
After the verdict came in, Leslie told the Whig-Standard, "it was Richard's decision not to take the deal," to which co-counsel Mary- Jane Kingston quickly added "he can't plead to something he didn't do."
Leslie said, "that's what he said. That was his decision and he made the right decision."
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
By Sue Yanagisawa
After three years behind bars awaiting trial, the man accused of murdering Amey's taxi driver David Krick is free.
Richard Edmund Smith, 34, was tried for second-degree murder over the past five weeks in Superior Court in connection with Krick's June 2007 stabbing death.
Friday morning, at 11:07, the foreman of his jury stood and announced that the verdict was not guilty.
The victim's family, sitting in the spectators' benches, looked shocked.
They believe the right man was on trial: Krick's 73-year-old mother, Shirley Krick, fought tears and his sister Brenda's jaw literally dropped upon hearing the words, while her brother, Raymond, and sister-in-law, Robyn Lawlor, sat silent.
Staff Sgt. Bill Kennedy of the Kingston Police clearly disagreed with the jury's verdict.
Kennedy headed the police department's major case unit at the time of Krick's murder on June 17, 2007, and led the investigation that resulted in Smith's arrest four months later.
After the jury and Justice Douglas Belch left the court, as officers went to the prisoner's dock to remove Smith's handcuffs and leg shackles, Kennedy exploded. Addressing himself to Const. Jim Lindsay, the police officer assigned to court house security, Kennedy growled: "Let him go. Let the killer go, Jimmy."
"I'm absolutely disgusted," Kennedy then announced, adding to Smith: "Go out and do it again."
As Smith left the Frontenac County Court House with his lawyers and walked through the parking lot, Kennedy called after him to enjoy his freedom because David Krick won't be enjoying his. Smith, head down, didn't respond.
Krick's family had already left, walking slowly but with dignity away from the court house, their disappointment palpable.
Even Smith's lawyer, Mary-Jane Kingston was touched by their situation, observing that Shirley Krick and her daughter are "wonderful people."
The two women faithfully attended almost every day of Smith's preliminary hearing and trial, absenting themselves only during those parts that involved graphic evidence of the injuries sustained by their son and brother.
Jury deliberations in Canada are secret, so no one will ever know how the verdict was reached, but before they were sequestered Thursday night and taken to a local hotel, jurors had sent notes to the judge five times requesting a recap of specific bits of witness testimony.
Their sixth and final question, asking what Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton said Smith was wearing when she was out with him the night of June 16, 2007, into the early hours of June 17, was answered by Belch at 10:35 a.m. yesterday, 20 minutes before they arrived at their verdict.
Belch told them Martin-Chatterton testified, "he was wearing a sweater. I don't recall the colour. It was like a knit sweater. It had sleeves."
Both lawyers and the judge had already told jurors that the case would come down to a matter of identity and credibility. The forensic evidence gathered during the investigation provided no direct link between Smith and the murdered taxi driver.
The Crown presented a largely circumstantial case that placed Smith a few blocks from the spot where Krick's stolen taxi was found a little less than an hour after its discovery.
There were also two instances of Smith's conduct the day of the murder that, in the estimation of police and assistant Crown attorneys John Skoropada and Elisabeth Foxton, cast him in a suspicious light: Smith's ready and uncorroborated explanation for his presence on Palace Road between 7:28 and 7:43 a.m. on a Father's Day Sunday and his burning of strips of cloth in his bathroom for over an hour with the lights off later that night.
Key pieces of the Crown's case were also problematic. The identification of Smith in the prisoner's dock at trial by Const. Lester Tang, was weakened by his failure to make it earlier at the preliminary hearing.
Tang said that Smith was the man he'd seen running from the parking lot off Macpherson Avenue where Krick's taxi was found minutes before 7 a.m. the morning of the murder. But he also described that man as having a round face and appearing well fed when other witnesses who knew Smith at the time said he was skinny and looked like a drug user.
Likewise, Holly Holland, a recovering crack cocaine addict, who called in an anonymous tip to Amey's Taxi stand implicating Smith in the murder on June 30, 2007, admitted she was on a drug binge with him when he confessed the murder to her.
Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Leslie, suggested to jurors her mind and memory played tricks on her in her drug-addled condition and implied, in the alternative, that a criminal charge against her was dropped in Nova Scotia after she gave her statement.
He never put that question to Holland, however, suggesting it instead to Staff Sgt. Kennedy, who testified he wasn't aware the charge had been dropped.
There were things that the jurors weren't allowed to know during the trial.
Defence lawyer Leslie questioned both Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, the woman who'd been with Smith the night before the murder and into the early hours of that Father's Day Sunday, and Holly Holland, who said she'd bought drugs from him and done drugs with him a number of times, about their impressions of his client's character.
Both agreed with Leslie they'd never seen his client with a knife. Martin-Chatterton also agreed that he'd always been "courteous" around her. Holland, when asked if she'd ever seen him violent or threatening said, "no".
There was no indication that either witness would have known -- and the jury wasn't told -- that Smith, who's originally from Hamilton, has been violent in the past.
He was convicted in 2003, in Milton, after he accosted a woman in the parking lot of a donut shop, forced her into her car at knifepoint, drove to a secluded spot and sexually assaulted her. Afterward, he forced his victim to drive to an ATM and withdraw cash for him from her account before he let her go.
He still hadn't completed the four-year, eight-month sentence he received for sexual assault with a weapon, forcible confinement, robbery, possession of property obtained by crime and driving while disqualified in October 2007 when he was charged with Krick's murder, and he wouldn't complete it until a month later on Nov. 30, 2007.
Nor was that Smith's first crime. His record dates to 1993 and includes property crimes, six convictions for failing to comply with conditions attached to various forms of release, impaired driving and domestic violence.
Jurors were told during his trial that Smith was hanging out in bars, using and selling drugs and cheating on his girlfriend. They weren't told that he was on parole, with conditions that prohibited him from drinking or using drugs and required him to report all of his intimate relationships because of his history of domestic violence.
The jury additionally wasn't told about the arguments in their absence, that the numerous delays -- with the exception of a three-day voir dire, a trial within a trial, on the admissibility of evidence -- were to accommodate defence lawyer Leslie. Nor did they know that he'd intended to make an issue in his closing argument of the Crown's decision not to call Smith's girlfriend at the time of the murder as a witness.
Leslie argued, in the absence of the jury, that Laura Clow, who shared the apartment at 117 Carruthers Ave. with Smith and was present when police seized burned cloth from their apartment's bathroom was "an important witness," but he chose not to put her on the stand himself.
Justice Belch ultimately forbid Leslie from suggesting the Crown was remiss in not calling Clow and told him if his order was ignored he would instruct them not to speculate on evidence they had not heard.
Jurors also didn't know that on Oct. 29, the Friday they were left in their jury room for almost seven hours without an explanation, it was because Leslie was talking to his client about pleading guilty to the homicide in return for a deal on sentencing.
After the verdict came in, Leslie told the Whig-Standard, "it was Richard's decision not to take the deal," to which co-counsel Mary- Jane Kingston quickly added "he can't plead to something he didn't do."
Leslie said, "that's what he said. That was his decision and he made the right decision."
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
Friday, November 12, 2010
No verdict after first day of jury deliberation
From the Kingston Whig-Standard Online:
By Sue Yanagisawa
The jury on the second-degree murder trial of the man accused of fatally stabbing Amey's Taxi driver David Wayne Krick in June 2007 was sequestered at 8:30 p.m. Thursday without a verdict.
Richard Edmund Smith, 34, has been on trial for the crime over the past five weeks in Kingston's Superior Court of Justice. In that time, the seven women and five men chosen to decide his case have heard testimony from 26 witnesses, including a woman who claims Smith confessed the murder to her a month after it happened.
Yesterday, following 3 1/2 hours of instruction from Justice Douglas Belch on the law and its application -- interrupted by a 30minute break to observe Remembrance Day -- the case was turned over to the jury to decide.
They must now be kept together, apart from all outside influences, until they reach a verdict. Consequently, they were taken from the court house to a hotel for the night by jury constables and will be brought back this morning to resume their deliberations.
In instructing them, Justice Belch told them that while he is the judge of the law, they are the judges of the facts and "as judges of the facts, your first duty is to decide what are the facts in this case."
Belch said "the evidence does not have to answer every question raised in this case." They must determine, however, whether it satisfies them of Smith's guilt or leaves them with a reasonable doubt that would require them to acquit.
The judge also observed that "this is a case that has a lot of circumstantial evidence," and explained what that means using the example of a raincoat and umbrella. If a person looks outside and sees that it's raining, he told them, that would be direct evidence of the weather. But if they see someone come in from outside wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella that would be indirect or circumstantial evidence of rain.
"In making your decision," Belch instructed jurors, "both kinds of evidence count. The law treats both equally." He also admonished them to use their common sense and experience in making their assessments.
Belch touched on the very limited contribution science and forensics were able to make in the case presented to jurors and said, "it seems to me, and both counsel have said this, that this case is all about identity."
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
By Sue Yanagisawa
The jury on the second-degree murder trial of the man accused of fatally stabbing Amey's Taxi driver David Wayne Krick in June 2007 was sequestered at 8:30 p.m. Thursday without a verdict.
Richard Edmund Smith, 34, has been on trial for the crime over the past five weeks in Kingston's Superior Court of Justice. In that time, the seven women and five men chosen to decide his case have heard testimony from 26 witnesses, including a woman who claims Smith confessed the murder to her a month after it happened.
Yesterday, following 3 1/2 hours of instruction from Justice Douglas Belch on the law and its application -- interrupted by a 30minute break to observe Remembrance Day -- the case was turned over to the jury to decide.
They must now be kept together, apart from all outside influences, until they reach a verdict. Consequently, they were taken from the court house to a hotel for the night by jury constables and will be brought back this morning to resume their deliberations.
In instructing them, Justice Belch told them that while he is the judge of the law, they are the judges of the facts and "as judges of the facts, your first duty is to decide what are the facts in this case."
Belch said "the evidence does not have to answer every question raised in this case." They must determine, however, whether it satisfies them of Smith's guilt or leaves them with a reasonable doubt that would require them to acquit.
The judge also observed that "this is a case that has a lot of circumstantial evidence," and explained what that means using the example of a raincoat and umbrella. If a person looks outside and sees that it's raining, he told them, that would be direct evidence of the weather. But if they see someone come in from outside wearing a raincoat and carrying an umbrella that would be indirect or circumstantial evidence of rain.
"In making your decision," Belch instructed jurors, "both kinds of evidence count. The law treats both equally." He also admonished them to use their common sense and experience in making their assessments.
Belch touched on the very limited contribution science and forensics were able to make in the case presented to jurors and said, "it seems to me, and both counsel have said this, that this case is all about identity."
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Lawyers make final pitch
From the Kingston Whig-Standard online:
By Sue Yanagisawa
"This is a whodunit," the jury on Richard Smith's second-degree murder case was told Wednesday by assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada. "Who killed David Krick?" he asked rhetorically: "I'm telling you Richard Smith killed David Krick."
He then reminded them of evidence they'd heard at the start of the trial from 28-year-old Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, who testified that she'd spent the Saturday evening of June 16, 2007, in a bar with Smith, leaving with him and another man, identified in court only as Chris, at closing time in the early hours of June 17, 2007.
Martin-Chatterton told jurors she had sex with both men at Chris's apartment before she took a cab home to South Barlett Street. She recalled that he didn't want her to go and told her he'd come by her place later.
She also said that, upon waking around noon that Father's Day Sunday, she found a message Smith had left on her answering machine just after 4 a.m. indicating he'd made good on that promise but hadn't been able to wake her.
Skoropada reminded jurors that Krick, 50, who drove for Amey's Taxi was dispatched to pick up his last known fare from the YMCA parking lot off Wright Crescent about two and a half hours later that morning, at 6:33 a.m.
Jurors heard during the trial that the panic button in his cab was pushed about 10 minutes later and that Krick managed to make a 911 call before he was found on the sidewalk on Durham Street, stabbed 31 times and without vital signs.
Krick's cab, Amey's taxi No. 71, meanwhile, had been stolen and driven back to within blocks of the spot where he'd picked up his last fare. It was found abandoned in a parking lot off Macpherson Avenue and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and the police officers who made the initial discovery both saw a man bolt from the area, minutes before 7 a.m. But they weren't able to catch him.
Police were still in the vicinity looking for the runner when Smith roused the suspicions of Amey's cab driver Jai Scouten, who pointed him out, walking south on Palace Road, to Const. Edward Gaulton.
Scouten said he became curious about Smith because he drove past him three times and "he refused to look at me." He testified that he pulled alongside the pedestrian and told him "we were looking for a guy," without disclosing why. Smith, jurors were told, responded by volunteering that he was coming from his employer's place on Wright Crescent, adding that he didn't know the address, which Scouten also found odd.
Gaulton testified that he stopped Smith at 7:43 a.m. after talking to Scouten, searched and questioned him and received the same information that Scouten had, plus the name of his employer -- Harry Buttle -- and Smith's claim that he'd gone to Buttle's apartment to enquire about work. He told jurors he didn't believe Smith, but the clothes Smith was wearing didn't match the suspect description -- light-coloured or faded jeans and a black, long-sleeved jersey. He also didn't see any evidence of blood or injury to indicate Smith might have been involved in a knife attack.
Buttle died before the trial began, but jurors heard his recorded testimony from Smith's preliminary hearing . He testified that he was away from his apartment between 7 and 9:30 a.m. that morning. He said Smith later told him that he'd dropped by to enquire about jobs and thought it "strange," in that he'd never done it before.
Skoropada questioned Smith's claim of an early morning visit to his employer and told jurors "it defies logic that someone who's been out partying until at least 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning wouldn't have called ahead."
He suggested to them Smith's explanation was a lie, "to deflect suspicion away from himself about why he's on Palace Road."
He also reminded them that they'd heard evidence about Smith having friends on Cliff Crescent, a few blocks south of where Krick's cab was found, and said Buttle testified at the preliminary hearing that Smith kept extra clothes at the home of one of those friends and in Buttle's van, which was parked on Wright Crescent.
The Crown prosecutor directed jurors to a map that's been tacked to the wall opposite them throughout the trial and asked them to take note of where David Krick was found, behind the "no-tell motel" that housed the now-defunct XXX Sports Bar, which Smith frequented. He also asked them to note where Buttle and Smith's friend on Cliff Crescent lived, and the spot where Smith was stopped on Palace Road almost an hour after police saw a suspect fleeing the vicinity of Krick's abandoned cab. Skoropada observed, gesturing toward the map, that "Richard Smith lives in the middle of this."
In his closing, Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Leslie, invited the jury to reject key evidence from two of the Crown's witnesses in the trial: Const. Lester Tang, who identified Smith in the prisoner's dock as the man he'd seen crouching and then running from the An Clachan parking lot off Macpherson the morning of the murder; and Holly Holland, an admitted crack cocaine addict who called in an anonymous tip to Amey's Taxi stand on July 30, 2007, implicating Smith.
Holland was in Quinte Detention Centre when Krick was killed, but testified that immediately after her release, she went on a drug binge with Smith and another man named George at an apartment on Joseph Street. She claims that Smith told her while they smoked crack together that he'd killed "the cab driver" and afterward ran into an apartment building to escape. She said he told her he didn't get much money and speculated that he was trying to impress her.
Leslie suggested, however, that after days of drug use without sleep or food or any intake of fluids, Holland's memory played tricks on her. He theorized that her mind, under the influence of drugs, imported a conversation about the murder she'd overheard between strangers when she first arrived at the Joseph Street apartment.
The defence lawyer also questioned Tang's ability to make any identification based on a glimpse of the runner's face that Tang estimated had lasted only a second. He reminded jurors that Tang didn't identify his client during his preliminary hearing and said at this point "he might be lying, and then again he might not be." Leslie suggested the constable's recall was tainted by seeing a photograph of his client in the newspaper following Smith's arrest in October 2007.
Likewise, he largely dismissed the evidence of his client's neighbours, who testified about seeing a man burning what they believed were strips of cloth in Smith's bathroom for about an hour beginning around 11 p.m. on June 17, 2007.
"You might say to yourself, 'that's weird, that's a bit weird what Richard Smith was doing that night.' Fine, think that," Leslie told them. "I think it's weird." But it doesn't matter, he said, because the forensics expert who examined the material police retrieved from the apartment's toilet and sink couldn't tell them anything more than the material included fragments of denim.
Skoropada, in his closing, said the absence of forensics in this case isn't surprising because this is real life, not CSI Miami. He noted that in addition to not finding Smith's fingerprints in Krick's taxi, for instance, the forensic experts weren't able to identify any belonging to Krick.
But Leslie emphasized repeatedly to jurors that the onus lies with the Crown to prove his client committed the murder and "Richard Smith doesn't have to prove anything."
Skoropada used the analogy of a "constellation effect," and told the jury that when you look at one or two stars in a constellation "you have no idea what you're looking at," but when you look at them all together it becomes obvious.
Leslie borrowed the Crown's analogy comparing components of the evidence to stars in the Big Dipper and told jurors, "this huge constellation of factors that pull everything in to convince you he's guilty rests on Holly Holland." If you take out Holland and Lester Tang, Leslie told them, "you might think it's the Big Dipper, but you wouldn't be sure, and in Canadian law you have to be sure."
"I'm not going to tell you Richard Smith is a nice guy," Leslie said. "We know he sold drugs. He sold drugs to Holly (Holland)."
He warned them, as well, that emotion can play no part in their deliberations.
"What happened to Mr. Krick is horrible," he said. "He did not deserve what happened to him. But you cannot say, 'someone has to pay the price.' "
suey@thewhig.com
Copyright © 2010 The Whig Standard
By Sue Yanagisawa
"This is a whodunit," the jury on Richard Smith's second-degree murder case was told Wednesday by assistant Crown attorney John Skoropada. "Who killed David Krick?" he asked rhetorically: "I'm telling you Richard Smith killed David Krick."
He then reminded them of evidence they'd heard at the start of the trial from 28-year-old Dawhlia Martin-Chatterton, who testified that she'd spent the Saturday evening of June 16, 2007, in a bar with Smith, leaving with him and another man, identified in court only as Chris, at closing time in the early hours of June 17, 2007.
Martin-Chatterton told jurors she had sex with both men at Chris's apartment before she took a cab home to South Barlett Street. She recalled that he didn't want her to go and told her he'd come by her place later.
She also said that, upon waking around noon that Father's Day Sunday, she found a message Smith had left on her answering machine just after 4 a.m. indicating he'd made good on that promise but hadn't been able to wake her.
Skoropada reminded jurors that Krick, 50, who drove for Amey's Taxi was dispatched to pick up his last known fare from the YMCA parking lot off Wright Crescent about two and a half hours later that morning, at 6:33 a.m.
Jurors heard during the trial that the panic button in his cab was pushed about 10 minutes later and that Krick managed to make a 911 call before he was found on the sidewalk on Durham Street, stabbed 31 times and without vital signs.
Krick's cab, Amey's taxi No. 71, meanwhile, had been stolen and driven back to within blocks of the spot where he'd picked up his last fare. It was found abandoned in a parking lot off Macpherson Avenue and Sir John A. Macdonald Boulevard and the police officers who made the initial discovery both saw a man bolt from the area, minutes before 7 a.m. But they weren't able to catch him.
Police were still in the vicinity looking for the runner when Smith roused the suspicions of Amey's cab driver Jai Scouten, who pointed him out, walking south on Palace Road, to Const. Edward Gaulton.
Scouten said he became curious about Smith because he drove past him three times and "he refused to look at me." He testified that he pulled alongside the pedestrian and told him "we were looking for a guy," without disclosing why. Smith, jurors were told, responded by volunteering that he was coming from his employer's place on Wright Crescent, adding that he didn't know the address, which Scouten also found odd.
Gaulton testified that he stopped Smith at 7:43 a.m. after talking to Scouten, searched and questioned him and received the same information that Scouten had, plus the name of his employer -- Harry Buttle -- and Smith's claim that he'd gone to Buttle's apartment to enquire about work. He told jurors he didn't believe Smith, but the clothes Smith was wearing didn't match the suspect description -- light-coloured or faded jeans and a black, long-sleeved jersey. He also didn't see any evidence of blood or injury to indicate Smith might have been involved in a knife attack.
Buttle died before the trial began, but jurors heard his recorded testimony from Smith's preliminary hearing . He testified that he was away from his apartment between 7 and 9:30 a.m. that morning. He said Smith later told him that he'd dropped by to enquire about jobs and thought it "strange," in that he'd never done it before.
Skoropada questioned Smith's claim of an early morning visit to his employer and told jurors "it defies logic that someone who's been out partying until at least 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning wouldn't have called ahead."
He suggested to them Smith's explanation was a lie, "to deflect suspicion away from himself about why he's on Palace Road."
He also reminded them that they'd heard evidence about Smith having friends on Cliff Crescent, a few blocks south of where Krick's cab was found, and said Buttle testified at the preliminary hearing that Smith kept extra clothes at the home of one of those friends and in Buttle's van, which was parked on Wright Crescent.
The Crown prosecutor directed jurors to a map that's been tacked to the wall opposite them throughout the trial and asked them to take note of where David Krick was found, behind the "no-tell motel" that housed the now-defunct XXX Sports Bar, which Smith frequented. He also asked them to note where Buttle and Smith's friend on Cliff Crescent lived, and the spot where Smith was stopped on Palace Road almost an hour after police saw a suspect fleeing the vicinity of Krick's abandoned cab. Skoropada observed, gesturing toward the map, that "Richard Smith lives in the middle of this."
In his closing, Smith's defence lawyer, Gregory Leslie, invited the jury to reject key evidence from two of the Crown's witnesses in the trial: Const. Lester Tang, who identified Smith in the prisoner's dock as the man he'd seen crouching and then running from the An Clachan parking lot off Macpherson the morning of the murder; and Holly Holland, an admitted crack cocaine addict who called in an anonymous tip to Amey's Taxi stand on July 30, 2007, implicating Smith.
Holland was in Quinte Detention Centre when Krick was killed, but testified that immediately after her release, she went on a drug binge with Smith and another man named George at an apartment on Joseph Street. She claims that Smith told her while they smoked crack together that he'd killed "the cab driver" and afterward ran into an apartment building to escape. She said he told her he didn't get much money and speculated that he was trying to impress her.
Leslie suggested, however, that after days of drug use without sleep or food or any intake of fluids, Holland's memory played tricks on her. He theorized that her mind, under the influence of drugs, imported a conversation about the murder she'd overheard between strangers when she first arrived at the Joseph Street apartment.
The defence lawyer also questioned Tang's ability to make any identification based on a glimpse of the runner's face that Tang estimated had lasted only a second. He reminded jurors that Tang didn't identify his client during his preliminary hearing and said at this point "he might be lying, and then again he might not be." Leslie suggested the constable's recall was tainted by seeing a photograph of his client in the newspaper following Smith's arrest in October 2007.
Likewise, he largely dismissed the evidence of his client's neighbours, who testified about seeing a man burning what they believed were strips of cloth in Smith's bathroom for about an hour beginning around 11 p.m. on June 17, 2007.
"You might say to yourself, 'that's weird, that's a bit weird what Richard Smith was doing that night.' Fine, think that," Leslie told them. "I think it's weird." But it doesn't matter, he said, because the forensics expert who examined the material police retrieved from the apartment's toilet and sink couldn't tell them anything more than the material included fragments of denim.
Skoropada, in his closing, said the absence of forensics in this case isn't surprising because this is real life, not CSI Miami. He noted that in addition to not finding Smith's fingerprints in Krick's taxi, for instance, the forensic experts weren't able to identify any belonging to Krick.
But Leslie emphasized repeatedly to jurors that the onus lies with the Crown to prove his client committed the murder and "Richard Smith doesn't have to prove anything."
Skoropada used the analogy of a "constellation effect," and told the jury that when you look at one or two stars in a constellation "you have no idea what you're looking at," but when you look at them all together it becomes obvious.
Leslie borrowed the Crown's analogy comparing components of the evidence to stars in the Big Dipper and told jurors, "this huge constellation of factors that pull everything in to convince you he's guilty rests on Holly Holland." If you take out Holland and Lester Tang, Leslie told them, "you might think it's the Big Dipper, but you wouldn't be sure, and in Canadian law you have to be sure."
"I'm not going to tell you Richard Smith is a nice guy," Leslie said. "We know he sold drugs. He sold drugs to Holly (Holland)."
He warned them, as well, that emotion can play no part in their deliberations.
"What happened to Mr. Krick is horrible," he said. "He did not deserve what happened to him. But you cannot say, 'someone has to pay the price.' "
suey@thewhig.com
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