Shooting victim wasn’t intended target, trial told
Aspiring rapper Eriq Mvemba, who used the stage name Yayopenza, was in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was fatally shot, a prosecutor told his accused killers’ murder trial Monday.
Crown lawyer Vicki Faulkner, in detailing her expected case for Justice Robert Hall, said Mvemba was sleeping in the Dover basement suite of Jeoffery Balimaka when murder suspects Shannoh Jabet and Mourad Gasmi showed up.
Faulkner said the two men, who face charges of first-degree murder, were angry at Balimaka because Jabet believed he was owed a debt by Balimaka from a recent stay at the Calgary Remand Centre.
“Eriq was shot in the early morning hours of Oct. 28, 2017,” Faulkner told the Court of Queen’s Bench judge.
“Eriq was not the accuseds’ original intended victim.”
Faulkner said Mvemba was sleeping at Balimaka’s 31A Avenue S.E. residence when Gasmi, 23, and Jabet, 24, came looking for their intended target.
“Eriq was killed by the accused because Eriq just happened to be at Jeoffery’s house the night the accused came looking for Jeoffery,” the prosecutor said.
“Eriq was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Faulkner said Jabet believed Balimaka owed him debt from a time when they were both housed at the Calgary Remand Centre.
When Jabet was released he contacted Balimaka to have the debt repaid, but was told none was owed.
“That’s when the two accused decided to take action against Jeoffery Balimaka,” the prosecutor said.
She said the two men were driven to the residence and entered through a window to the laundry room.
Inside, Mvemba was shot before the pair fled, Faulkner said.
But she said witnesses will describe their conduct after the shooting.
“You will hear from witnesses who were told by the accused that they killed somebody,” she said.
Court will also hear “how they got rid of evidence, fled the province and drove to Quebec where they were eventually arrested.”
Among the pieces of evidence the Crown will present is a shoe found discarded by Deerfoot Trail, which contained both Gasmi’s and the deceased’s DNA, court was told.
Meanwhile, the first officer at the crime scene described finding the victim’s body at the open door to the basement suite.
Photographs displayed in court, while Const. Christopher Mckay testified, showed Mvemba lying on his back, blocking the entrance with a large pool of blood beneath his head.
Both Jabet, who is represented by defence counsel Andrea Serink, and Gasmi, who has lawyer Allan Fay acting for him, pleaded not guilty. The trial is scheduled for three weeks.