Accused carried sword, knives, trial told
Victim slain after meeting suspect on Shemale Canada site, Crown says
The Crown has opened its case against a transgender woman accused of fatally stabbing a man she apparently met on a website advertising sexual services.
Moka Dawkins, charged under the name Curtis Gordon Dawkins, identifies as a female, Crown attorney Maeve Mungovan told a Superior Court jury. Sitting in the prisoner’s box, Dawkins wore an aubergine shoulder-length wig and black windbreaker.
She’s accused of killing Jamie Foster, 27, early on Aug. 3, 2015. He bled to death in the secondfloor hallway of his apartment building at 135 Rose Ave., near Parliament and Bloor Sts.
Toronto police responded to a 911 call placed by a neighbour who saw a man “naked, bleeding and begging for help,” outside her door just before 1:42 a.m., according to the Crown. The neighbour’s husband said he observed a man dressed in women’s clothing carrying a sword under his arm, Mungovan said.
The officers arrived minutes later and found Dawkins outside in a parking lot carrying a sword in her right hand and three knives in her left. They ordered her to stop and drop the weapons, Mungovan said. “Though she dropped the sword and knives, she continued to advance on the officers with her left hand behind her back. She got to within a few feet of the officers. Concerned the accused may have additional weapons,” one of the officers deployed his pepper spray, Mungovan said. Dawkins was taken to hospital and received three sutures to treat a laceration under her left eye. No other injuries were noted by medical staff.
The trial is not a whodunnit. Dawkins, 28, admits stabbing Foster. But she has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, a charge that means the killing was intentional but not premeditated or planned.
The pair started communicating by cellphone in early July of 2015 while Dawkins was using a website called “Shemale Canada.com” to advertise sexual services, Mungovan said. On Aug. 3, phone records obtained by police show multiple calls between Dawkins and Foster up to 1 a.m. Forty minutes later, police received a 911 call.
Foster had a long-standing girlfriend, “who right up until his death, believed him to identify as heterosexual,” Mungovan told jurors. The prosecutor said Foster had some involvement with the criminal-justice system, without specifying what that was, and that at the time of his death he was sharing an apartment at 135 Rose Ave. with his mother. His girlfriend had recently moved out due to “some troubles in the relationship,” the prosecutor said.
She told jurors to expect to hear from witnesses, including the neighbours, and see graphic photos, bloodstain and postmortem evidence. A pathologist will testify Foster bled out from three deep stab wounds to his left upper arm, left groin and left thigh, and that he also suffered “sharp force wounds” to his face, arm and shin, in addition to nine wounds to his hands and fingers.
The trial in front of Superior Court Justice Robert Clark resumes Monday.