Two arrested in slaying of rapper
Toronto police have charged two men in the January shooting death of rapper Anthony Spencer and have issued a Canada-wide warrant for a woman believed to be with them at the time of the murder.
Spencer was killed with a single bullet at a Scarborough recording studio on Jan. 21. He was the city’s fourth homicide of 2012.
On Monday, at the Toronto West Detention Centre, police charged Samuel Paul, 23, with first-degree murder and robbery while using a firearm.
Across town, at the Metro East Detention Centre, Chever Ashley, 22, was charged with robbery with a firearm and accessory to murder.
Both men, who are also facing several gun-related charges, appeared in Scarborough court on Tuesday morning and were kept in custody.
Paul and Ashley are due back in court on Oct. 23.
Police believe that the two accused robbed Spencer and his friends at a basement recording studio on Brimley Rd. known as The Dungeon, and that the 23-year-old was shot and killed in the process, explained Det. Sgt. Gary Giroux at a news conference Tuesday afternoon.
Both accused have been in custody since just days after Spencer’s murder, held on weapons charges. Although their names were not released at the time, police made clear the two men have always been suspects in his death.
Giroux said Ashley was arrested on Jan. 26 and charged with possession of an automatic weapon. Four days later, Paul — a Scarborough rapper known as “Sam G” or “Sammy G,” who police say has ties to the Wickson Trail gang in Malvern — was arrested and charged in relation to the same weapon.
Court documents related to Tuesday’s charges against Paul and Ashley said they were in possession of a SIG Sauer .40 calibre firearm with an altered serial number and extended magazine the night they were arrested.
Giroux said police believe they have the firearm that killed Spencer.
After Spencer’s death, police said they weren’t able to lay murder charges against the suspects because witnesses weren’t coming forward.
Giroux said he couldn’t elaborate on what led to the upgrading of
“I’ve had to watch my parents deteriorate every single day.”
SUSAN SPENCER
SISTER OF MURDERED RAPPER
charges and said the case is still active and there are security concerns.
Five friends rushed Spencer to hospital after he was shot, but left before police arrived.
This winter, police cited a “code of silence” as hampering the investigation.
Spencer, who police have said did not have gang connections and wasn’t known to police, would have known Paul through the local rap scene, explained Giroux.
Police had earlier said rap lyrics performed by Spencer — known by the stage name Tony Trapz — may have shown disrespect to gang members and led to his murder. But on Tuesday, Giroux said the case was being treated as a robbery. In a song labelled “Sam.G — Your Way” uploaded to YouTube, Sam G’s lyrics describe guns and turf, making references to Scarborough and the 416 area code. One in particular says, “My clique stretch from the West side to the gut of Scarbs / Called D-boys, (inaudible) shoot your face off.” In January, police released security footage of a young woman seen arriving and leaving with the suspects, as well as audio of her call to a cab company, where a single gunshot rang out in the background. At the time, police urged the woman to seek legal advice and come forward. Giroux said the woman had been interviewed by police, but once they built up the evidence they needed to make a case, she had disappeared. “This young woman has made her choice, and as a result, a Canadawide warrant has been issued for one LaPrincia Palmer,” said Giroux. Palmer, 19, is wanted for robbery with a firearm, which will be a joint charge with Paul and Ashley, and attempting to obstruct justice.
“There’s a tremendous amount of police efforts that are going into locating her,” said Giroux, who urged the woman to surrender. “The world can become a very small place for someone as unsophisticated as this young woman is.”
Police also said in January that they had connected Spencer’s death to three drive-by shootings in the Malvern neighbourhood of Scarborough. Two of those shootings happened on Wickson Trail.
Speaking to reporters at the news conference, Spencer’s sister, Susan, flanked by her mother, father, brother and sister-in-law, expressed relief that charges had been laid and hope that this development might give courage to witnesses who still haven’t come forward, “to step up and do the right thing.”
“We’re missing him dearly,” she said of her brother. “We’re in our prison where I’ve had to watch my parents deteriorate every single day, watch my mother who was happy, and my father cry every day and have questions, ‘What happened to their son?’” she said.
Spencer is survived by a daughter, Triniti, who recently celebrated her fourth birthday.