Jailed killer charged with plotting other murders
Man is accused of trying to have four targets killed while he’s in prison
A man serving a life sentence for orchestrating the murder of his wealthy godfather, Toronto philanthropist Glen Davis, has been charged with counsel to commit murder that he allegedly tried to arrange from behind bars.
The court has imposed a publication ban on the names of the alleged four targets, who sources say were not fellow inmates.
Marshall Ross, 49, has already appeared in court in Kingston and Napanee and is scheduled to appear in court again via video on June 18. He has been incarcerated at the Bath Institute, a medium-security federal prison located about 25 kilometres west of Kingston.
Ontario Provincial Police Det.-Const. Debbie Asselstine, the case’s lead investigator, said Monday she couldn’t release any more information at this time. No one else has been charged and she would not confirm if anyone else has been arrested in connection with the case.
According to an OPP news release, a joint investigation was launched in August 2019 under the direction of the OPP Criminal Investigation Branch with members of the joint forces penitentiary squad and Correctional Services Canada.
Ross was sentenced to life in prison in 2011 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in a Toronto court.
He admitted enlisting others to kill Davis, 66, who was shot to death around midday on May 18, 2007, as he walked to his vehicle in an underground parking lot at Mount Pleasant Road and Eglinton Avenue East. Ross was also behind an earlier attack on Davis, who was beaten by a man wielding a baseball bat in 2005.
Ross, under pressure to repay $2.5 million he borrowed from Davis for his home renovation business, engineered the murder to settle the debt.
“I cannot do anything to change the terrible thing that I have done,” Ross said in a statement read out in court in 2011 by his lawyer, James Lockyer.
Lockyer told the Star on Monday that Ross has been in contact with his law office, but declined to say anything further.
Davis was a generous benefactor to conservation groups. His financial support led to the establishment of 1,000 new parks and added millions of hectares of protected land in Canada.
He left behind his widow, Mary Alice, who described what Ross had done as a “disgusting betrayal.” The couple, who had no children, were Ross’s godparents; he called them aunt and uncle, although he and Davis were actually second cousins.
A civil lawsuit involving Davis’s estate remains unresolved. N.M. Davis Corp., the Davis family investment and holding company, is trying to collect on a $3-million judgment that could force the sale of a house occupied by Ross’s ex-wife, Eva Wower, and their two children.
N.M. Davis Corp. has received no payment and alleges that Ross fraudulently transferred his interests in the matrimonial home and two cottage properties.
A lawsuit alleges the transfer was done “under the guise of a divorce proceeding, in order to defeat Davis Corp., from realizing on its judgment of more than $3,200,000 as against Ross.”