Accused pleads guilty to torture killing
Man kidnapped, beaten in 2016
The main perpetrator, and the last of six co-accused in a kidnap, torture and murder case, has confessed to his central role in what a judge described as a “sickening” example of the sad and dark underbelly of the Windsor drug scene. At a scheduled pre-trial hearing Tuesday ahead of what was expected to be a first-degree murder trial lasting up to four months, Dustin Scott Schuh pleaded guilty to second-degree murder. He faces an automatic life sentence, with a hearing next week to determine the length of time of his parole ineligibility (the range is 10 to 25 years). Scott Phillips, 26, was discovered by Windsor police officers bound, bleeding and badly injured in an apartment in the 600 block of Mill Street on Oct. 19, 2016. The victim of a kidnapping and brutal torture died a week later.
At the previous sentencing of one of those involved, Superior Court Justice Bruce Thomas said the case offered “a glimpse of the degradation” of those involved in the drug subculture. One of the participants, chastised for not alerting police sooner, went out for pizza and alcohol on separate trips while the defenceless victim was being beaten over a lengthy period. The judge on Tuesday lifted a publication ban on details of the case that had been imposed during earlier court actions. According to an agreed statement of facts, Schuh had been alerted by one of two women who had picked up Phillips and driven with him to a Tim Hortons parking lot. Claiming he was owed money for drugs, Schuh, an admitted drug dealer, had put out word earlier that he was searching for Phillips and another man. After Schuh arrived with twins Dennis and Erick Bercian and boxed in the other vehicle, there was a struggle in the parking lot and Phillips was forced into the other vehicle.
The three men drove Phillips to a west Windsor residence frequented by drug users, dealers and purchasers. Phillips was confronted and, mostly at the hands of Schuh, beaten unconscious, revived, bound and then punched, kicked and stomped on, stabbed and cut. People came and went as the drinking and beating continued overnight and into the next day. Nobody bothered to call police. The Bercians, 32, who were scheduled to stand trial in March for first-degree murder and unlawful confinement, pleaded guilty instead on Feb. 1 to kidnapping and were each sentenced to 60 months in prison.
Melissa Anne Luyten, 34, was also originally charged with murder but pleaded guilty in December to a single count of forcible confinement and was handed a fouryear sentence.
Walter Smith, 67 at the time of the incident and at whose apartment the incident took place, faced a charge of murder but pleaded guilty last July to being an accessory after the fact and was sentenced to time served (649 days in pre-sentence custody). Daniel Shaw, 38 at the time of his arrest in September 2017, pleaded guilty Feb. 1 to a charge of forcible confinement and has a sentencing hearing in April. Detectives at the time said the crime was no random act and that Phillips had been targeted in a stabbing three weeks before his death. The Windsor man sustained multiple injuries in that earlier incident on Sept. 29, 2016, but he wasn’t co-operative with police. Schuh, 26 at the time, was arrested with Luyten in London a month after the killing. It took police nearly a year to apprehend Shaw.