Victim killed by hammer blows, court hears
First-degree murder trial of Carl Quinton in St. Catharines man’s death is underway
Evidence will show that moments after Mark Gilby answered a knock at his door he was repeatedly struck in the head by a man armed with a hammer and was left to die in a pool of his own blood, a local Crown attorney said Wednesday.
A concerned friend contacted the apartment’s superintendant after she couldn’t reach Gilby but could hear “snoring-like noises” coming from just inside the apartment door, assistant Crown attorney Tom Jacob told the eight-man, four-woman jury in Superior Court of Justice in St. Catharines.
Gilby, 58, lived alone in his Gale Crescent apartment, located near the Jack Gatecliff arena in St. Catharines.
He had suffered two strokes and was living on a disability pension. He had mobility issues and used a three-wheeled scooter to get around.
When paramedics arrived to check on Gilby on Jan. 19, 2014, they found his bloodied and beaten body slumped near his front door, his scooter behind him.
“He was pronounced dead due to blunt force trauma,” Jacob said on the first day of the firstdegree murder trial of Carl Quinton, 60.
In court Wednesday, Jacob laid out the Crown’s case.
He said Gilby was “believed to be a street level marijuana dealer” and that the defendant had purchased some pot from the victim the day before the murder.
On Jan. 19, he returned to the apartment and contacted Gilby using the building’s intercom system.
When Gilby answered the door, Quinton allegedly struck him in the head repeatedly with a hammer.
Niagara Regional Police Det. Const. Scott Sunstrum testified he was on patrol that day when he was dispatched to assist paramedics with a welfare check.
When he arrived, paramedics told him a male inside the apartment was deceased.
“I observed blood spatter up the wall and also on the ceiling,” he said, describing the crime scene.
Under cross-examination by defence counsel Geoffrey Hadfield, Sunstrum said he was familiar with the apartment building as he had been called there a number of times in the past.
“Drug users and prostitutes would sneak into the building … there’d be calls for domestic disturbances and noise complaints.”
Quinton was arrested in February 2015, more than a year after Gilby was found dead.
At the time of his arrest, police said the case involved a “lengthy forensic investigation” which included “numerous sources of video.”
The trial continues Thursday before Judge Robert Reid.