Court could set teen free
Convicted as accessory to two grisly murders Agony continues for the victims’ families
Joe Manchisi dreads the day he’ll have to tell his 18- monthold son Giacomo what really happened to the brother he never knew. “He kisses his picture every day so he’s always part of his life,” Manchisi, 55, said. “ I pray somehow I’ll be able to tell him what happened to Joe.” The Milton realtor also hopes he doesn’t have to tell his toddler son that the teenager responsible for starting the horrific chain of events that led to the murders of his big brother and his best friend wound up spending only a few months in jail. An Ontario Court of Appeal is expected this week to render its decision on whether the 16year-old Orangeville teen will get out of jail after serving just two months of a six- month sentence for his conviction of accessory after the fact to murder in the grisly deaths of Manchisi’s son Joe, 20, and his friend Robert Grewal, 22, of Mississauga. A three-panel of judges reserved their decision Friday after hearing submissions from the teen’s lawyer Charlie Waite and Crown prosecutor Feroza Bhabha at Osgoode Hall. Manchisi and Grewal were murdered Nov. 12, 2003, and then dismembered by suspected serial killer Douglas Moore, a convicted pedophile. The teen admitted in court to helping Moore, 36, whom he viewed as a father figure, to bury their torsos in different areas south of Montreal. Their heads and hands, still missing, were then buried in an undisclosed area, possibly in Cornwall.
Waite has asked the courts to overturn the jail sentence imposed by Justice Minoo Khoorshed on Oct. 5 in a Brampton courtroom. The teen is currently serving the first four months of his sentence at a youth facility. The remaining two months is to be spent at a halfway house. He spent 18 months under house arrest after his arrest April 12, 2004. “Where is the justice?” said Manchisi, who was at Friday’s court session along with Grewal’s mother, Jatinder.
“ Even the six months is bogus, a joke. He’s not in jail. He’s in a youth facility. This hearing was acomplete waste of public money. “And he still won’t tell us where the rest of the body parts are. Let me find the rest of my boy’s body. I don’t care what he says. This criminal knows where the heads and hands are buried. Just tell us. That’s all I want from him now.”
At his trial, the teen testified he helped Moore dig separate holes near train tracks, possibly in the Cornwall area, and then buried the slain men’s heads and hands. But he insists he doesn’t know the burial site.
Peel police took the young teen to the Cornwall area several times, but he was unable to locate the spot.
Peel police said Moore murdered Manchisi’s son and Grewal and then dismembered their bodies in the garage of his Mississauga townhome in the community of Meadowvale. The teenager’s identity remains protected by the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The teen, 14 at the time, told a Brampton court Moore strangled one of the young men with a hockey skate lace and beat the other to death with a baseball bat. Moore committed suicide in his cell at Maplehurst Detention Centre April 2, 2004, before police could officially charge him with their murders as well as the slaying of Mississauga teenager Rene Charlebois, whose body was found in an Orangeville area dump on March 19, 2004.
Police have never revealed why Charlebois was killed, but they say Moore murdered Manchisi and Grewal because he believed they had broken into his home in October 2003 and stole $ 4,000 worth of cash, marijuana and jewellery. But the teen, who was living in Moore’s house at the time, admitted in court he actually stole the items. He also said he helped Moore cover up the murders out of fear for his own life and even held the men’s severed heads while Moore hosed them down at a Mississauga coin- operated car wash.
Their torsos were buried two days after the grisly killings.
Justice Khoorshed said he “ had no hestitation” sending the teen to jail because of the “ horror of the crime” and the fact he helped cover up the murders by denying he knew anything about the killings for more than five months.
At Osgoode Hall Friday, Waite argued the offence wasn’t “ an exceptional case” as defined by law, in that the crime wasn’t against the general public — such as a hate crime would be — although he admitted it had “ disastrous effects” on the families of the victims. He said the teen never participated in the murders or knew about them in advance. Bhabha said the offence was an “ exceptional case” in that the teen played a “ significant role” because of his actions after helping Moore dispose of the dismembered remains.
“ He showed a callous disregard for the victims’ families . . . spent the money he stole from Moore on his friends, knowing full well his story caused Moore to take their lives,” she said.
“ The horrific impact of his participation continues for the families. They have not been able to find all the remains.” Manchisi is also still upset prosecutors never applied to have the teen sentenced as an adult, which would have resulted in a stiffer sentence and allowed his name to be published.
“ He is a criminal . . .. It’s not right that the public doesn’t know who he is,” Manchisi said.
Manchisi is also hoping police will soon provide him with a specific location where he can search for the heads and hands of his boy and his friend.
“ Maybe some people have forgotten, but not me,” Manchisi said. “ I won’t rest until I find the rest of my son and his friend.”