Pizza Pizza murder trial opens
Man arrested in the case will testify against his co-accused in 2016 death
Aone-time murder suspect will be the Crown’s star witness against his three co-accused at a first-degree murder trial that began in front of a jury Wednesday in Toronto Superior Court.
Jarryl Hagley, 17, was shot and killed as he sat with friends in a Pizza Pizza on Weston Rd. in the early hours of Oct. 16, 2016.
Prosecutor David Tice provided jurors with an overview of the Crown’s case against Mohamed Ali-Nur and twin brothers Shakiyl and Lenneil Shaw, who are all in their 20s.
His outline did not include a motive as to why two gunmen, alleged by the Crown to be Lenneil Shaw and Ali-Nur, burst into the restaurant with hoods partly obscuring their faces and fired a shotgun and a handgun at Hagley and his friends. Shakiyl Shaw is alleged to have been waiting in a black SUV parked outside.
Hagley was struck by several shotgun pellets, which penetrated his chest and heart, and died before arriving at hospital. His friends ran into the washroom when the guns started blasting and weren’t injured.
There was no working surveillance camera inside the restaurant, but Toronto police seized video from outside the building that showed three people getting out of a black SUV that had been “circling in the area prior to the shooting,” Tice said. After the shooting, the video showed the same three people returning to the SUV.
Tice told jurors that the video showed a licence plate on the SUV “associated” to Winston Poyser, and that he looked similar to one of the people in the video.
Poyser was charged with firstdegree murder in the case on Dec. 28, 2016. He indicated that he wanted to give a statement to police outlining his involvement in the shooting — as well as implicating others, including the twins, whom the prosecutor said he had known for a number of years, “even having dated one of their sisters.”
It was agreed that any statement he gave would not be used against him, Tice said.
Poyser “resolved” his first-degree murder charge after pleading guilty to the lesser offence of being an accessory after the fact, “as he allowed the accused parties to use his car to escape from the scene,” Tice said.
He also deleted dash-cam video from his SUV and kept the windows of the car open in the rain which may have washed away forensic evidence, the prosecutor continued. Poyser was given the equivalent of a 27-month sentence after receiving 18 months credit for time served in custody, and probation for two years.