Shooter found guilty of first-degree murder — again
A Hamilton man who shot an innocent bystander while seeking revenge on a former Barton Street jail inmate is guilty of first-degree murder.
The 12-member jury in Shaquille Collins’ retrial returned with the verdict around noon Wednesday.
The target was Justin Beals, but Collins ended up killing 22year-old James Bajkor, who was working in the backyard of 16 Milton Ave. at the time.
That’s still first-degree murder, the prosecution told the jury during the four-week retrial into the May 21, 2012, shooting.
“It’s been a tragic event and the family having to live through it twice has been extremely difficult,” assistant Crown attorney Janet Booy said outside court.
“I want to say thank you to the jury. They worked very hard and they got it right again, and Hamilton is a safer place.”
Bajkor’s family found it too difficult to attend the retrial, Booy noted.
Reached later by phone, his father, Joe, said he and his wife, Sharon, were pained to relive the ordeal.
“It’s over now and I would just like to put it behind us.”
Defence lawyer Alison Craig declined to comment after the verdict.
Her 25-year-old client was also found guilty of attempted murder for badly wounding Beals, who required emergency surgery.
Collins’ initial conviction in 2014 was overturned due to errors in the previous judge’s instructions to the jury.
The retrial jury heard references to Collins’ earlier court deliberations, but Justice Andrew Goodman told them to only consider the current evidence.
The events of six years ago were not crystal clear in the courtroom; some witnesses recanted previous statements, struggled with hazy memories or said they’d lied to police.
The prosecution traced Collins’ desire for revenge to October 2011, when Beals and other inmates allegedly assaulted him at the Hamilton-Wentworth Detention Centre.
When he ran into Beals outside an apartment building on Sanford Avenue North several months later, he saw his opportunity to settle the “jail beef,” the Crown argued.
The two fought, but Collins pursued Beals and his then-partner, Amber Thorogood, to Barton Street East and Milton Avenue.
Thorogood sought the help of her cousin, who was living at 16 Milton Ave., an old brick home Bajkor was renovating after buying it from his grandmother.
Collins, then 19, left but returned minutes later in a taxi with two friends and a loaded Colt .45.
When he stepped out of the cab, he fired five shots in “quick succession” at Beals in an alley down the side of the home.
He struck Beals, who made it inside through a side door, but his crossfire also hit Bajkor in the back. He died in hospital.
Collins, a drug dealer at the time, said he only wanted to scare Beals, who also sold drugs, and retrieve a pouch he may have lost in the earlier scuffle.
But when Beals said he doubted the gun was real, Collins said he fired two warning shots above his head.
That’s when Beals lunged, Collins claimed, and went for his gun, which he fired three more times in self-defence.
Christopher Newton, 34, had already pleaded guilty to manslaughter when he appeared as a witness.
He was sentenced to an additional year in prison after being credited with 7.5 years of presentence custody.
Another witness, who was a minor at the time and who can’t be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, also pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to three years on top of roughly three years’ worth of pre-sentence custody.
On Wednesday, Collins, dressed in the same grey suit and purple shirt he’d worn throughout the retrial, showed little emotion upon hearing the verdict.
His sentencing hearing has been scheduled for next Wednesday at 10 a.m.