One man acquitted, two convicted following murder conspiracy trial
Though mainly circumstantial, the evidence was at times ‘crystal clear,’ judge rules
The sound of a woman wailing through the phone interrupted Justice Robert Stack Wednesday, as he ordered one of four men charged with a murder conspiracy plot to surrender himself to HMP within the next 48 hours.
“Though I am confident that you will do so, I am ordering that a warrant be issued for your arrest,” Stack told 21-year-old Brandon Glasco as he delivered his verdicts in the case by phone conference, explaining the warrant would not be executed until the 48 hours had passed.
Given the seriousness of Glasco’s crime, the judge said, he wasn’t comfortable allowing Glasco to remain in the community until his sentencing hearing.
Glasco, 36-year-old John Squires and 26-year-old Shane Clarke had each pleaded not guilty to plotting to murder Bradley Summers in May 2018 and went to trial earlier this year. They had been awaiting a verdict since March, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused most proceedings at Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court to be halted. The court is slowly returning to a semiregular schedule through video and phone conferencing.
Glasco and Squires, who is already in custody, were found guilty of murder conspiracy. Squires was also convicted of multiple weapons charges, to which he had already admitted guilt.
Clarke was found not guilty of conspiracy to murder. He declined comment after his acquittal.
The fourth man, Dustin Etheridge, had already pleaded guilty to the murder plot and other charges, and did not go to trial. He has yet to be sentenced.
The court heard Etheridge had been the leader of the group, and police were investigating him for drug trafficking when they learned he and some of his associates were planning to kill Summers. Through wiretaps, hidden recording devices and other methods, investigators say they learned the men had acquired a gun and a cheap used car and were going to carry out their plan the evening of May 16, 2018.
Police surveillance teams spent the day tracking Etheridge before swarming the car he was driving in the Rabbittown neighbourhood of St. John’s minutes before 10 p.m.
Summers was at an acquaintance’s house on the same street.
Police officers forced Etheridge and Squires from the car, and Squires told them he was carrying a loaded handgun in the front of his pants. Glasco and Clarke were arrested months later.
In his 46-page decision, Stack highlighted what he said were frailties in the
Crown’s case, including that it was largely dependent on the recorded conversations and that police investigators had made some mistakes when identifying the speakers involved in some of them.
He nevertheless accepted that Glasco, Squires and Clarke were the men in the recordings. He accepted that Clarke was probably a participant in the conspiracy plot, but said he was unable to make that conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt, since there wasn’t proof that Clarke had known about the plan, despite evidence that Clarke had been involved in trying to get a gun and a car for Etheridge and had picked him up on the night in question.
“I agree with counsel for Mr. Clarke that nowhere in the evidence — intercepted communications, surveillance, statement (to police) of Brandon Glasco or otherwise — was Shane Clarke party to a discussion about killing Brad Summers. Nor was there evidence adduced upon which such knowledge can be inferred,” the judge said.
Quoting one of the other defence lawyers, Stack said the Crown’s case against Clarke, “May at best show some awareness of some nebulous nefarious activity and some association with some other persons acting with ill intent,” but not enough to warrant a conviction for murder conspiracy.
When it comes to Glasco, the recorded conversations made it “crystal clear” that he knew what was happening and was part of it, the judge said.
Glasco was heard in one conversation saying, “Just let me go up and talk to him for a few seconds. I’ll just tell him to give me one second and I’ll walk back in the house and she be walking back in and that’s when you walk right up. Boom boom.” Other conversations included Glasco talking about calling Summers and asking him to come to the area where Squires and Etheridge were arrested.
“The text messages and observations by police … prove that Mr. Glasco had fulfilled his obligation: Brad Summers had been lured to the location where he was to be murdered,” Stack determined.
As for Squires, Stack rejected his lawyer’s allegation that he was unaware of the murder plot and that his role in the recorded conversations were a matter of trepidation, bravado and black humour. Stack also dismissed the argument that Squires had intended to threaten Summers, not kill him.
“Mr. Squires had knowledge of Mr. Etheridge’s plan to kill Brad Summers,” the judge ruled. “Furthermore, Mr. Squires’ agreement to help carry out that plan culminates with him being arrested on Calver Avenue armed with a loaded weapon at approximately the same time that Brad Summers had been lured there by Mr. Glasco.”
Squires and Glasco’s sentencing hearing has been set for July 30.