The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Crown begins calling evidence at murder trial
A transit driver tried to comfort shooting victim Triston Reece after discovering him critically wounded in a car parked on a residential street in west-end Halifax in July 2019.
“I got to the window (and) I saw a young man slouched over, bleeding profusely from his head,” Keith Borden testified Tuesday, when a Nova Scotia Supreme Court jury began hearing evidence at Kaz Henry Cox’s murder trial in Dartmouth.
“I (asked) if he was OK, if he could hear me. He was breathing deeply, gasping as if he was choking. I asked him who did this and his arm kind of jerked up.”
Borden said he told the victim he was safe, to stay calm and that somebody would be there to help him soon.
“I just put my hand on his shoulder to let him understand that somebody was there, and continued to tell him, ‘Stay strong, there’s people who are going to be waiting for you.’”
Borden said he stayed with the young man and kept talking to him until help arrived.
The shooting happened on Scot Street at 5:32 p.m. on July 26, 2019. Reece, 19, died in hospital early the next day.
After Borden testified, Dale Russell embraced him in the courthouse lobby and tearfully thanked him for taking care of her son.
Cox, 43, is charged with first-degree murder. The trial got underway Monday with jury selection and opening instructions from Justice Jamie Campbell.
On Tuesday, the jury heard the Crown’s opening statement, followed by evidence from five civilian witnesses and two Halifax Regional Police officers.
'SENSELESS DEATH'
Crown attorney Sarah Kirby told the eight-woman, six-man jury the case is “a tragic story of a young man’s senseless death and the efforts that were made by the killer to evade detection."
Reece was sitting in his parked car when he was shot at five times and “left for dead,” Kirby said.
“The evidence you will see and hear during the next several weeks will show that Kaz Cox deliberately shot Triston Reece that early evening and that he planned to do so.”
The prosecutor said Cox’s oldest daughter, Tatiana Cox, was also 19 at the time and knew Reece.
“The evidence will show that Tatiana and Triston frequently communicated in the months prior to his death, including on the day that he was shot,” Kirby said. “Tatiana lived with her mom and her younger sister on the street where Triston was murdered. He was parked at the tip of her family’s driveway.
“The evidence will show that Kaz Cox frequented this address. The evidence will also show that Triston was shot by a person in a car, that the car was connected to Kaz Cox, and that Kaz Cox was driving the car at the time.”
The Crown alleges that after the shooting, Cox drove the car out of the city and took Highway 103 to the South Shore.
“You’ll … hear evidence of Kaz Cox’s cellphone pinging off cellphone towers, which we believe aids in tracking Mr. Cox through the city and out to the highway,” Kirby told the jury. “And you’ll hear evidence of Kaz Cox arriving shortly thereafter in East Chester with that car, and later taking it to the spot where it was burned.”
She reminded jurors that Cox is presumed innocent and that the burden is on the Crown to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
“This burden never shifts to Mr. Cox,” she said. “He does not need to prove his innocence.
'AMPLE EVIDENCE'
“We are confident that by the end of this trial, you will have ample evidence before you to find Mr. Cox guilty of firstdegree murder.”
The Crown’s first witness was a woman who drove past Reece’s car on Scot Street a few minutes before the shooting. Nicole Sheppard said that as she waited for the traffic lights at the intersection with Joseph Howe Drive to turn green, she was stopped next to the silver vehicle and saw the driver reaching into the back seat.
Alexandria Smith told the court she was outside her workplace on Joseph Howe Drive when she heard what sounded like firecrackers.
Smith said she looked up and saw a vehicle stopped next to a parked car on Scot Street. The driver’s arm was out the window and a gun was visible, she said.
She said she heard three or four shots before the car drove off in the opposite direction “a little faster than usual.”
Corey Young was walking along Rowe Avenue toward Scot Street with a friend when he heard popping noises that sounded like gunshots. He said a grey or silver sedan then turned onto Rowe from Scot and sped past them.
Young said the male driver of the car had a garment over the bottom half of his face. He said he did not see any passengers in the vehicle.
Asked how many shots he heard, Young said he was certain there were more than one. “It was kind of like a burst,” he said.
Another Halifax Transit driver, Paul Mcgrath, said he heard “five sharp sounds” while his bus was on Joseph Howe Drive. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Gee, that sounded like gunfire.’” Mcgrath said.
As he turned the bus onto Scot Street, he said he saw two cars beside one another. One of the vehicles then took off, he said, and turned onto Rowe Street.
'SOMETHING REALLY BAD'
Mcgrath said he looked into the parked car and saw a person leaned over towards the middle of the vehicle. “I’m starting to think that this is looking like something really bad,” he said.
Sgt. Darla Perry testified that when she looked into Reece’s vehicle, there was blood spatter in both the front and back seats. She said she talked to Reece and reassured him that she was there to help him, but he did not respond.
Det. Const. Illya Nielsen, a forensic identification officer, was questioned about photos he took at the shooting scene, of Reece’s car after it was impounded, and at a location on Aylesford Road in Lunenburg County, where Chester RCMP seized a burned-out vehicle.
Nielsen said a ball cap in Reece’s car was contaminated with blood and had two holes in the temple area. He said four bullets were recovered during the autopsy and another bullet was found in a door panel on the passenger side of Reece's vehicle.
The trial is scheduled to sit for 30 days. Rick Woodburn is also prosecuting the case, while Cox has three lawyers – Alexandra Mamo, Quy Linh and Vison Linh.