Final day of testimony in trial gets emotional

The mother of the man accused of shooting his roommate two years ago didn’t know anyone had been shot, so she took her son home and prepared for work the next morning.

Katherine Cameron’s testimony wrapped the fifth and final day of her son Matthew Cameron’s trial, for which he’s charged with aggravated assault and using a firearm to commit an indictable offence for shooting Kyle Miller.

A heated exchange with Crown counsel John Swanson occurred when Katherine was questioned about why she had washed her and Matthew’s clothes upon returning home. Cameron said she had wanted to wash her shirt for work the next day, as Miller had spat on it in his anger.

When she saw Matthew’s clothes in a heap on the floor, she threw them in, too.

Katherine had been present at the time of the incident and said Miller had swatted at her and shoved her in the chest as she tried to get him to calm down.

Photos taken by Matthew of the bruising across her chest were shown to the jury Friday while an emotional Katherine spoke of how she tried to get between the two arguing men.

“Kyle was extremely angry,” Katherine said, adding that she’d never seen him like that before. “He started lunging at (Matthew) and slapping him with the back of his hand. He was egging him on trying to get him to fight.”

When asked why she’d positioned herself in front of Matthew, Katherine told the jury she had a good relationship with Miller and was concerned about his behavior.

She frequently watched his dogs, watered his plants and bought him groceries, as well as picking him up whenever he needed a ride. (Miller had spoken positively about her in his testimony on Monday.)

As Matthew Cameron tried to leave, Katherine said, “Kyle just went bolting, just charging down that hallway after him. Still yelling and calling him all kinds of names. I was standing in the hallway going, ‘I want this to stop, will this please stop?’”

She followed and again tried to calm Miller down. She was standing behind him in the hallway when the gun went off. “There was a horrible bang,” she said. “I took a few steps back and my ears were ringing. I didn’t know where it had come from.”

She said she didn’t realize anyone had been shot. “I thought that Kyle had shot at my son.”

Katherine Cameron faced intense scrutiny in cross-examination from Swanson, who questioned how she was able to pass by Miller in the hallway after he’d been shot without noticing.

She said she hadn’t seen a gun whatsoever, despite being within arms reach of Miller. “He was struggling in the hallway, back and forth. The only thing I could see was the back of Kyle.”

“I inched my way around (him), I looked to see if there was a gun, and I ran to my car.”

Katherine noted she didn’t see Miller’s injury, nor any of the blood, as Miller continued to yell at her son. “I wasn’t looking for blood, I was looking for a gun,” she said.

Photos taken by RCMP Forensic Identification Unit Cpl. France Burke showed blood stains in the hall and on the door. “The impact was so strong you can see it’s almost a cone effect,” Burke said adding the blood reached about two metres up the wall.

Swanson asked Katherine why she hadn’t immediately called police.

Katherine said her husband was on hold when they returned home. “I didn’t see that there wasn’t absolute urgency at that moment,” she said. “No one had been hurt at that moment.”

Matthew, who hadn’t yet told his mother what had happened, said he went downstairs and used a different phone in his grandmother’s room in order to turn himself in.

Matthew Cameron testified briefly on Friday reiterating his previous statements to police viewed by the jury earlier in the week.

The trial wraps with closing arguments Tuesday in front of Justice Gary Weatherill.