Slain Lakeshore district fire chief ordered out of bar on fatal night
Lakeshore District Fire Chief Joe St. Louis and the man accused of being his killer were seen arguing in a Windsor bar and ordered out a short time before a fatal confrontation outside a nearby home nearly two years ago.
Nicholas Jacobs, whose family owns Jake’s Joint on Huron Church Road, was there with friends that Friday night when he said he had to intervene twice to separate two men having a heated exchange.
“I walked up and explained myself: ‘No fighting here,’ ” Jacobs said Wednesday on the third day of the trial of Michael Hiller, 45, who is charged with assault and manslaughter in the March 2018 death of St. Louis.
Jacobs testified he knew Hiller but not the other man, who fit the description of St. Louis.
When he had to intervene a second time, he told the men, “that was it, ‘You guys have to go now.’ ”
Bar security video surveillance of that night, March 23-24, 2018, was previously played in court and showed St. Louis and Hiller arguing on more than one occasion, with St. Louis shown jabbing his finger at Hiller.
There was no audio on the surveillance tape. Jacobs said he didn’t know what the men were arguing about.
A previous Crown witness, Mary Botosan, who was married to Hiller but arrived at the bar with St. Louis, testified previously that she had been drinking and couldn’t recall any of the events or what was said at Jake’s Joint that night.
Jacobs said Botosan came up to him during one of his interventions, “yelling” at him about what the other two men were arguing about, but “I don’t remember what she said.”
St. Louis and Botosan left the bar shortly before 2 a.m., ahead of Hiller. Botosan testified earlier that, although still legally married, her “romantic relationship” with Hiller had ended but she allowed him to “sporadically” live with her and their two children.
Meanwhile, she was in an intimate relationship with St. Louis, a longtime firefighter who was a married man with two children.
Botosan testified that she had asked St. Louis to escort her to her Daytona Avenue home, where she said the pair briefly encountered a knife-wielding Hiller outside before an angry confrontation ensued on the front lawn between the two men — one which she claimed not to have witnessed.
A forensic pathologist testified previously that St. Louis, 51, died of irreversible brain damage from neck strangulation.
During cross-examination on Wednesday, however, the defence suggested Botosan was far more physically involved in the confrontation that night.
Hiller’s lawyer, Evan Weber, suggested Botosan and St. Louis arrived at the home on Daytona and, discovering Hiller was not yet back, continued driving until they saw Hiller had returned.
“You knew there was going to be a confrontation that night,” said
Weber. “I disagree,” Botosan replied.
In the struggle that ensued outside, Weber said, it was St. Louis who was pulling backwards on Hiller until the two men stumbled into the front yard. Weber suggested Botosan got involved in the struggle.
“I don’t remember,” Botosan said repeatedly in response to Weber’s questioning.
“Unfortunately, things went horribly, tragically wrong,” said Weber.
Botosan testified earlier she and St. Louis had been drinking at Silver’s Lounge and then Jake’s — she herself consuming up to 17 alcoholic drinks.
A blood sample taken from St. Louis showed the heavy-set man had a blood-alcohol level in his body of almost double the legal limit for driving.
Never regaining consciousness, St. Louis was taken off life support and declared dead on March 29.
The trial before Superior Court Justice Renee Pomerance continues Thursday.
I walked up and explained myself: ‘No fighting here.’ That was it, ‘You guys have to go.’