Osborne’s fate in jury’s hands starting today
Jurors asked to hold hammer used in killing
Lisa Wannamaker asked jurors Monday to pick up the hammer used to kill Terry Pringle while they decide Jordan Osborne’s future.
“Think about someone using enough force to get it stuck in his (Pringle) head,” said Wannamaker, assistant Crown attorney.
The 17-ounce tool became embedded in Pringle’s skull during one of the blows Osborne delivered to the father of three on Nov. 25, 2016.
Pringle’s body was found in his apartment the next day. He died of blunt force trauma and a forensic pathologist testified the injuries were consistent with the face of a hammer.
Wannamaker encouraged jurors to feel the weight of the hammer in their hands — to try to imagine it wouldn’t cause death or bodily harm causing death if it was used to bash someone in the head four times.
During his first-degree murder trial, Osborne testified he didn’t intend to use the hammer, nor did he mean to kill Pringle.
“There was certainly no plan for this to happen,” Magda Wysozomierska, Osborne’s lawyer, told jurors.
“The plan” was to rough up Pringle so he’d shut his mouth. Murder or weapons were never part of the plan, court heard.
So why did Osborne bring a hammer to Pringle’s that night? He’s not quite sure, he testified.
The teenager who helped with Pringle’s assault brought a wooden baseball bat. (He’s serving time for manslaughter).
The teen testified he brought the bat in case anything went “sideways,” meaning if Pringle wasn’t alone.
Both the teen — who can’t be named — and Osborne testified they didn’t know the other had brought a weapon until they reached Pringle’s window.
They said they both concealed their weapons — out of each other’s sight — before leaving the Bethune Street residence where Osborne was living.
That’s where “the plan” was hatched.
Samantha Hall, a drug dealer living in the same building as Pringle, wanted Pringle roughed up so he’d stop telling people she was dealing.
Payment for the assault was
$60 worth of cocaine.
The defence claims Osborne was so drunk and high on cocaine that night, he didn’t understand the consequences of his actions.
Osborne took the stand and admitted to manslaughter, Wysozomierska said.
“Jordan admitted his acts because they are the sad truth,” she said.
A witness for the defence testified snorting cocaine ignites the fight or flight part of the brain. That mode can cause a person to act impulsively instead of rationally, Wysozomierska reiterated.
Therefore, since Osborne was in fight or flight mode, he should be found guilty of manslaughter, she said.
“When he was striking him with the hammer, he did not have the foresight that he would die,” she said.
Wannamaker disagreed with that.
She suggested the plan was to kill Pringle and it was carried out as planned.
A corpse can’t talk, court heard.
Osborne was asked to carry out the attack about seven hours before it happened, Wannamaker said — that’s a lot of time to plan.
“Clearly, this wasn’t a good plan … but it doesn’t make it any less of a plan.”
Osborne’s testimony about being high and drunk was an exaggeration to make him seem obliterated, Wannamaker said.
“No one saw him drinking that night,” she said.
Wannamaker pointed out both Osborne and the teen testified they never intended to use the weapons.
“Yet the very first thing they do is use those weapons,” Wannamaker said.
The duo climbed through Pringle’s window, while Pringle slept in a chair, and began striking him immediately.
Not one word was uttered to Pringle — no message was ever delivered, she noted.
The blows Osborne delivered were swift and he never missed, Wannamaker said.
“Those were kill shots.”
The jury is expected to start deliberating Tuesday.