Prosecution presents case at murder trial
Crown describes how 49-year-old man allegedly beat, stabbed girlfriend in 2016
Detained by Caesars Windsor security after being unable to pay his restaurant bill, a Windsor man soon found himself in front of police investigators, boasting of killing someone in a fashion that involved so much blood it resembled “a pig hung upside down and cut open,” a prosecutor told the court on Tuesday.
John Wayne Pierre, now 49, is on trial in Superior Court, charged with second-degree murder in the beating and stabbing death of his 42-year-old girlfriend Lesley Watterworth on the afternoon of Nov. 1, 2016.
Details of that day and the events leading to his arrest, as alleged by the prosecution, were spelled out in court by assistant Crown attorney Eric Costaris in his opening statement on the trial’s first day. Costaris described to the jury how several neighbours heard repeated angry shouting by Watterworth in the mid-afternoon of the day of the alleged incident coming from an upper unit of a duplex located at 925 Curry Ave.
They next heard items smashing inside. When the woman’s shouting turned to screams for help, a group of neighbours went to the front yard, calling out to an open window of the upper unit, the attorney said.
Pierre appeared at the open window to say everything was fine, wishing them “Happy Halloween.” But the neighbours demanded to see Watterworth in the window, the prosecutor said.
When he refused, one of the neighbours went up to the unit’s doorway to confront Pierre and demanded to see Watterworth, but was repeatedly rebuffed by the accused and told everything was fine. The neighbour eventually gave up and retreated, Costaris told the court.
The jury was told by the prosecutor how Pierre left the residence a short time later and went to a friend’s house where he repeatedly boasted of killing his girlfriend.
“(Pierre) kept telling him he killed her, but (the friend) kept thinking it was a joke,” Costaris said.
At one point, Pierre wrote her name on a piece of paper, which the friend “put in his mouth and chewed it,” the attorney said. The accused then visited another friend, had a few drinks, fell asleep for a bit, awoke and headed to the casino, the prosecutor said.
It was there where he ran up a large restaurant bill, had his credit card declined, was unable to pay, leading to casino security officers getting involved. Windsor police were alerted when it was learned Pierre had an outstanding arrest warrant for an alleged domestic assault of Watterworth from a couple months previous, the jury was told. During a subsequent interview, police discovered that Pierre, underneath the suit he had on, was wearing overalls covered in blood, Costaris said.
“He started bragging about the blood on his clothes to police and how he could show them where the body was,” the attorney told the court.
Police were dispatched to the residence on Curry where they arrived at 4:10 a.m. and discovered Watterworth’s body. Costaris concluded in his statement to the jury how an autopsy revealed Watterworth had suffered multiple injuries to the face, neck and torso with a fatal stab wound to the back.
The trial continues on Wednesday.
He started bragging about the blood on his clothes to police and how he could show them where the body was.