Crown rests case at Neville trial
After six weeks and the testimony of 14 witnesses, the Crown has rested its case against accused murderer Steven Neville, and has handed the trial over to the defence.
Jessica Gallant and Jason House are prosecuting Neville, 27, who is charged with seconddegree murder in connection with the stabbing death of 19-year-old Doug Flynn in October 2010. Neville is also charged with attempting to murder a second man, Ryan Dwyer, by stabbing him during the same altercation, which took place on the street in a Paradise subdivision.
Flynn died after he was stabbed in the arms, chest and head. Dwyer received multiple stab wounds in the side and arm.
The prosecutors have presented Neville’s actions as deliberate and contemplated, pointing out text messages Neville had sent to a friend the day of the stabbings.
“This is it, they’re dead, dead, dead. I’m stabbing them until they are squirting blood,” one of the messages read.
Bob Buckingham and Robert Hoskins, who are representing Neville, are set to call their first witness on Tuesday morning. During his opening submissions when the trial began Sept. 20, Buckingham told the jurors that Flynn and Dwyer had mounted a “terror campaign” against Neville, after a falling out over $65. The pair had enacted a “search and destroy plan” and had tracked Neville to a party in Paradise on the night of the stabbings, Buckingham said.
This is Neville’s second time being tried on the charges. A jury originally convicted him of second-degree murder in 2013, but the conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada two years later. The court found there were problems with the trial judge’s instructions to the jury, and ordered a new trial.