Girl tells of taping murder plot

Crown says call to police too late to save ‘ Johnathan’ Body of boy, 12, found stabbed in east-end basement

A 16- year- old girl who used the e-mail address “biteforblood@hotmail.com” to communicate with her boyfriend says she was nonetheless repelled by his claims to be a vampire and horrified when he told her he and friends planned to murder a boy and his parents. The witness, who cannot be named, testified at the boyfriend’s murder trial yesterday that when she was 14 she tried to break up with him after being “ weirded out” by his boasts of killing people in the Don Valley and drinking their blood. And on Nov. 25, 2003, just hours before a 12- year- old boy called Johnathan was stabbed to death in his home, she was disgusted and frightened when the boyfriend unveiled a murder plan to kill him and family members, she said.

“ He said it would be happening as soon as they got home,” she told the “Johnathan” murder re- trial.

This is the second time the case has been tried. The first trial ended in a mistrial, the jury was told.

Johnathan’s body was found in a crawl space in the basement of his family’s east Toronto home with 71 stabs, hacks, or cuts to his 100- pound body, prosecutor Hank Goody said as he opened the Crown’s case in youth court yesterday. The boyfriend, now 17, Johnathan’s brother, now 18, and another 17- year-old friend have pleaded not guilty to first- degree murder in the boy’s death. They cannot be named. The 17- year- old who was not the girl’s boyfriend and Johnathan’s brother have also pleaded not guilty to attempting to murder the boys’ stepfather as he returned from work that day. The girl testified yesterday that her boyfriend phoned her on the day of the slaying while she was sick at home. He told her that he and a youth she knew from high school were at a friend’s house where they planned to help him kill his younger brother Johnathan when he got back from school and each parent as they in turn arrived. He said they were going to steal the parents’ credit cards, buy bombs or ammunition and suicide bomb malls or highways, she said.

Although shocked by the call she didn’t tell her parents, who were at work, or the police because she didn’t think they would take her concerns seriously without proof. So she went to her high school and consulted her girlfriends, and they hatched a plan to go to one of their homes to phone the boys and tape the conversation. The jury will hear the six- minute tape recording of the call in which the three boys boast of their plans to kill Johnathan, his stepfather and mother, Goody said yesterday as he outlined the expected Crown evidence.The prosecutor said the boyfriend tells her they are doing it to solve Johnathan’s brother’s problems and “ make profit.”

In the call, she asks Johnathan’s brother: “ You having fun planning the death of your parents and little brother?” and he replies “ It’s already planned,” Goody said.

After taping the call, the girls told one of their mothers, who in turn alerted police, but officers could not respond in time to save Johnathan. He was dead less than an hour later, Goody said.

Shortly afterward, the stepfather arrived home and argued with his stepson over breaking house rules, Goody said. He confronted the boyfriend, who left saying he was sorry. As the stepfather tried to phone his wife at work, the stepson tried and failed to stab him with a chef’s knife and they struggled. The third boy hit the stepfather on the head with a baseball bat and the pair tried to kill him, Goody said. But he managed to escape, he said.

Police arrested the boyfriend at his home that same night and the next day arrested the two others, Goody said. The trial continues today.