The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Reece shot five times: medical examiner
Triston Reece’s mother wiped tears from her eyes Wednesday as a medical examiner detailed the injuries the young man suffered in a fatal shooting in west-end Halifax almost three years ago.
Reece, 19, was shot five times while sitting in a parked car on Scot Street on July 26, 2019, at 5:32 p.m. He died in hospital early the next morning.
Kaz Henry Cox, now 43, was arrested in November 2019 and charged with firstdegree murder. Wednesday was Day 8 of his jury trial in Nova Scotia Supreme Court in Dartmouth.
Dr. Marnie Wood, a forensic pathologist and medical examiner, testified Reece suffered four gunshot wounds to his head and one to the left side of his chest.
Wood said two bullets struck Reece in the left temple area and lodged in the back of his brain.
“Those were what caused the death,” she said of those injuries.
The doctor said three projectiles did not injure any “vital structures.” One bullet entered and exited Reece’s nose, another was recovered from his lower jawbone and the other was removed from between his fourth and fifth ribs.
The four bullets collected during the July 27, 2019, autopsy were labelled and given to a police officer who was present for the procedure.
Last week, another officer testified a fifth round was found in an interior door panel on the passenger side of Reece’s vehicle.
Jacques Rioux, an RCMP firearms specialist, testified via a video link from the force’s national forensic lab in Ottawa.
Rioux performed a microscopic examination on five bullets from the homicide that were sent to him by Halifax Regional Police.
He said the bullets, which were “significantly damaged,” were all copper-plated and appeared to be .22-calibre ammunition. He said the bullets can be fired from a .22-calibre revolver, pistol or rifle, but he was unable to tell what the weapon was in this case.
The Crown alleges Cox was driving a grey 2008 Pontiac G5 when he carried out the shooting, and that he then drove to the South Shore before torching the vehicle that night in a remote area along Aylesford Road in Kings County, just across the Lunenburg County line.
Rulla Cox, Kaz’s estranged wife, told the court last week that the Pontiac belonged to her boss, Jason Weagle, but he allowed her to use it on a regular basis.
She said she changed the licence plate on the vehicle at Kaz’s request about an hour before the shooting, and that he then drove away in the car. She said she never saw the car again and that Kaz instructed her to tell Weagle to notify his insurance company that the vehicle had been stolen.
FOUR OTHER WITNESSES
The jury heard from four other Crown witnesses Wednesday, including John Mackinnon, a former police officer who is an auto theft investigator with Equite Association, which is owned by the Insurance Bureau of Canada.
In November 2019, Mackinnon was asked to help police identify a badly burned vehicle. He said the primary vehicle identification number on the four-door sedan was destroyed in the fire, but he located the secondary VIN, which had been etched into steel in the car’s engine compartment.
A claims representative with Cooperators Insurance also testified via a video link from Ontario. Marta Munro said a man identifying himself as Weagle called the insurance company July 30, 2019, to report that his Pontiac G5 had been stolen July 27.
The VIN on Weagle’s vehicle matched the VIN on the burnt car.
Tony Caldwell, an employee with the Nova Scotia Registry of Motor Vehicles, testified about a series of documents he generated for the trial.
The documents show that Weagle went to an Access Nova Scotia centre Aug. 9, 2019, to have ownership of the Pontiac transferred to him, producing a bill of sale dated July 1, 2019. He also claimed that the licence plate that had been on that vehicle had been stolen.
The new licence plate that was linked to the Pontiac ended up on a Honda Civic owned by Weagle. Cox was driving the Civic when he was pulled over and arrested by RCMP on the South Shore on Aug. 21, 2019, for an unrelated matter.
Caldwell also confirmed Weagle owned a Chevy Silverado pickup truck in July 2019.
HRP Sgt. Nick Pepler told the court that sometime before the shooting, he installed tracking devices on both the Pontiac G5 and the Silverado.
Pepler said the tracker on the Pontiac was burnt beyond repair in the fire and police were unable to extract any information from it. He said it was set to upload data to the police every day at 6 a.m.
The officer did not say why the devices had been placed on Weagle’s vehicles.