Man who killed popular DJ guilty of manslaughter
Jury acquits defendant of murder as defence argues mental state played part
A man who snuck into a midtown Toronto apartment building and beat a tenant to death in the laundry room in 2020 is guilty of manslaughter, a jury decided Friday evening, acquitting him of murder.
After slipping into the Balliol Street building looking for a place to sleep, Rico Harvey repeatedly kicked and hit 52-year-old Peter Elie, including with a fire extinguisher, dumped garbage on his body, and then set a small fire. Elie was a video producer and popular DJ in Toronto’s Gay Village, working at various bars and clubs for over 20 years.
Defence lawyer Tyler MacDonald had pushed for the manslaughter verdict in his closing address to the jury. He argued that his client had been provoked by slurs and threats from Elie after he discovered Harvey had taken some of his laundry from the machine — a version of events the Crown had urged the jurors to reject.
“Provocation doesn’t mean Mr. Harvey was in the right; it would not be a vindication,” MacDonald told the jury. “It’s just a recognition of some of our human frailties, and that sometimes people can lose control in certain situations when serious acts are done to them, or threats are made to them.”
Harvey, 31, testified that beating Elie “felt like a dream,” saying he was clouded with rage because Elie had called him the n-word and threatened to call the police to have him shot. Bolstering his case was the testimony of a forensic psychologist, Milan Pomichalek, who said Harvey has a borderline personality disorder and was too angry to form the intent to commit murder, noting he was a “helpless spectator” to the beating. Harvey’s sister and mother also gave emotional testimony about his anger issues.
The jury delivered its verdict after two days of deliberation.
Harvey was homeless, out on bail for other offences, and dealing with anger and mental illness when he followed someone else into the Balliol Street building in May 2020 and set up a place to sleep in the washroom next to the laundry room.
MacDonald told the jury they had to take into account Harvey’s mental-health issues, as they were “inextricably woven” into every aspect of the case, including his homelessness, why he was in the building, his perception of the threats against him, and whether he had the capacity to form the intent to murder Elie.
“We have to resist any urge to replace the solid evidence of mental disorder and its effect on Mr. Harvey with some type of angry person stereotype, or anything suggesting that Mr. Harvey is just a calculating predator,” MacDonald said. “That is the way of the past. That is the kind of thinking that used to justify treating people like animals.”
Crown attorney Bev Richards urged the jury to find Harvey guilty of first-degree murder. While the defence suggested that the “senseless” killing could only be explained in the context of Harvey’s mental illness, Richards argued that “what often motivates a person to kill another human being is rarely based on logic, and it is most often senseless.”
Referring to Pomichalek’s testimony, Richards said jurors didn’t need an “after-the-fact, armchair opinion” to interpret Harvey’s state of mind on the night of the killing, as she asked them to consider the graphic surveillance footage of Harvey beating Elie.
“He mostly hits either the head or Mr. Elie’s chest. He’s turning the lights off in the room, and he doesn’t miss a hit, ladies and gentlemen,” Richards said. “He’s well aware of what he’s doing, and how he’s doing it. A mind well capable of a chosen intention.”
She argued Harvey beat Elie because he was worried about his belongings stashed in the washroom, and concerned about being found out and sent back to jail. Elie was “desperately trying to get away” from Harvey, who ignored his pleas to stop, Richards said.
She also argued that Elie never called Harvey the n-word or threatened to have him shot by police. She pointed out Harvey never said any of this to another building resident he encountered after one of the beatings. Instead, he told the resident he had been “jumped by a white man” and needed a witness.
“Why would Mr. Harvey know that he needs a witness if he is in the kind of state that Dr. Pomichalek has opined to you?” Richards told the jury. “How would Mr. Harvey know he needs a witness if he is in a semi-automatic state? How would he know he needs a witness if he is just a helpless spectator?”
A sentencing hearing will take place at a later date. Unlike murder, which carries an automatic life sentence, there is no mandatory minimum sentence for manslaughter when a gun isn’t involved.