Jury convicts cousins in slaying of Niagara senior
A jury took less than five hours to find two cousins guilty in the brutal stabbing death of a Niagara Falls senior.
Richard Doxtator, 40, and Jasmine Doxtator, 38, showed no emotion Thursday after a jury in Superior Court of Justice in Welland found the pair guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Guiseppe (Joe) Caputo.
Judge James Ramsay sentenced the pair to life in prison, with no possibility of parole for 25 years.
“You killed him and you slandered him and I’m glad to see you off,” Ramsay told the defendants.
Caputo’s bloody body was found in his Portage Road apartment on June 19, 2015.
The 70-yearold had suffered 18 cutting wounds, including four stab wounds. The cause of death, court was told, was a stab wound to the chest inflicted with such force it sliced a bone in two. Jasmine Doxtator testified in her own defence and claimed Caputo had earlier drugged and raped her. She told the jury she and her cousin went to Caputo’s apartment that night to confront him over the sexual assault.
Richard Doxtator’s lawyer Jaime Stephenson said her client, who did not testify, stabbed Caputo in self defence after wrestling a knife away from the elderly man.
“Richard Doxtator is not guilty of murder,” she told the six-man, six-woman jury. “He is, in fact, innocent.”
Although Richard Doxtator was much larger and more than 30 years younger than Caputo, Stephenson said the victim was active and “not feeble in any way.”
Jasmine Doxtator’s lawyer, Aubrey Hilliard, told the jury the Crown had not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
“Jasmine testified she never planned to kill Joe Caputo and there is no evidence to contradict her testimony.”
She admitted there were inconsistencies in Jasmine Doxtator’s first interview with police compared to her testimony at trial.
“We’re all human beings,” Hilliard said. “This happened more than two years ago … memory fades.”
Both lawyers maintained the duo, both residents of Hamilton, had no intention of killing the man.
Assistant Crown attorney Tim Hill, however, argued the pair planned to kill Caputo and steal items of value from his apartment.
He called Jasmine Doxtator’s testimony a “pack of lies.”
“This was not an argument that got out of hand,” Hill said. “This was an assassination.”
Hill said the motive of self defence was “fantastical theory.”
“He (Caputo) has 18 cutting wounds while those we accuse have not so much as a paper cut.”