‘Nobody saw Thomas Keeping stab anybody’

Judge to render decision in the case of stabbing case later this month

While defence lawyer Shelley Senior acknowledged there are some pieces of evidence that point to Thomas James Keeping being guilty of stabbing another man last November, there are other reasons to explain why Keeping was in the neighbourhood and hiding under a deck from police.

Keeping, 32, has admitted to stealing a school bus and parking it in the area, she told the court Friday, and that’s why he ran from police officers.

“I’m going to suggest to the court that there were two people that morning in that neighbourhood running from police,” Senior said in her closing submissions at Keeping’s trial, adding the Crown hadn’t proven his identity in the stabbing beyond a reasonable doubt. “It certainly is reasonable that there were two people, and if not reasonable, then it’s certainly possible and not a frivolous and pie-inthe-sky explanation.”

Crown prosecutor Alison Doyle reminded the court that although no witness identified Keeping the one responsible for the stabbing, he was found carrying not only the keys to the stolen bus but knives and a cellphone from inside the victim’s home.

Keeping was arrested Nov. 28 after police received a report of a stabbing outside a home on Outerbridge Road in the west end of St. John’s. Officers arrived to find blood outside the home and 18-year-old Tyler Dove inside with three stab wounds to the abdomen. A police dog tracked a scent from the home to a deck behind a home in the Doyle Street area, under which Keeping was lying face down.

A neighbour testified she had been outside shortly before 8 a.m. that morning and had noticed a small school bus coming down the road slowly, with the male driver seeming to be looking for an address. He parked the bus near Dove’s grandmother’s house, the woman said, then got out and banged loudly on the front door of the home.

Dove’s grandmother told the court she had taken a quick walk to get coffee and breakfast and was nearly home when she saw two men fighting on her lawn. She saw Dove chase the other man and make a hitting motion before her younger grandson called out, “Nan, get down here, Tyler’s been stabbed and it’s bad!” The man ran off, she said, and once she was inside her home she noticed her cellphone was missing. None of the witnesses – not even Dove – identified Keeping as the stabber, saying they didn’t see the suspect’s face before he ran away. When he first took the stand, Dove told the court he couldn’t remember anything that happened, but gave some details after Doyle presented his hospital records from the night he was injured. He said he didn’t know who had stabbed him, but it wasn’t Keeping.

Keeping has pleaded guilty to possessing the stolen bus and driving while disqualified, as well as a single count of breaching a court order. A charge of breaking and entering was withdrawn after Doyle acknowledged there was not enough evidence to make a case. Charges of aggravated assault and assault with a weapon remain.

“Nobody saw Thomas Keeping stab anybody,” Senior pointed out Friday, asking Judge Colin Flynn to acquit her client. She noted multiple witnesses had described the attacker with different hair colour and clothing that Keeping had at the time.

Doyle said those inconsistencies could be explained “by frailties of human memory,” and pointed out that Keeping’s DNA had been found on the bus and the neighbour had seen the bus driver at the door of the victim’s home minutes before the stabbing. She noted Keeping had been found by a police dog as he was hiding with the bus keys, Dove’s grandmother’s cellphone and knives matching a set from inside the home on him.