Chesterville mechanic Raymond Collison was 58 when he disappeared without a trace in August 2009. His skeleton was found in a ditch five years after him.
In Jimmy Wise's case, the crown has lost its appeal. In 2020, he was acquitted by a jury of murder and manslaughter charges in the death of Raymond Collison. Seeking to order a second trial for Wise, the judge claimed that he had "violated" the confidentiality of jury deliberations and the evidence therefor. He was excluded from a trial that "has had a material impact" on his acquittal.
Wise, a retired mechanic, was a resident of a Winchester long-term care facility when he was arrested in 2018 and charged in connection with Collison's death.
He was acquitted on December 7, 2020.
Collison, a Chesterville mechanic, was 58 when he disappeared without a trace in August 2009. Later, in Morewood's culvert near Wise's property. Collison was shot five times, one in the back of his head and four in the back.
After investigators discovered that Wise "had negative feelings" for Collison, the case synopsis stated that Wise was the main cause of the man's death. "immediately appeared" as a suspect.
However, the Court of Appeal summary stated that the King's case was "entirely circumstantial" and the jury, after six days of intense deliberations, returned a verdict of not guilty. .
These deliberations became the focus of the King's appeals, and the prosecutor argued that the trial judge should have inadvertently breached the secrecy of the deliberations and declared the hearings erroneous.
Supreme Court Justice Kevin Phillips presided over the Wise murder trial.
As the jury stalled at the end of the trial, allegations surfaced that one juror was "bullying" and "threatening" another juror in the deliberation room.
Phillips investigated the allegations and admitted that the juror in question threatened to punch another juror in the face and told the other juror "f-off." I was.
It was during that hearing that one juror revealed the intent of the jury in question. He was adamant that the stalemate jury return with a guilty verdict.
The royal family at the time asked Phillips to declare a miscarriage of justice, arguing that "the cumulative effect of the interrogation process violated jury confidentiality rules and undermined the fairness of the trial." rice field.
Phillips refused to declare the trial erroneous and instead dismissed the jury.
After deliberating for one more day, the remaining 11 jurors of his member pleaded not guilty.
The Crown also stated that dismissing the jury "the remaining members would disapprove not only his actions but his opinion (which was to convict)."
The Court of Appeals held that while it was "disappointing" that the jury's intent to vote was revealed, the judge violated the right to a fair trial. It said it had conducted a "careful and limited investigation".
"No sane person would believe that (a juror) was released for his opinion. He was dismissed for misconduct," the Court of Appeals said. wrote.
Crown also appealed an earlier ruling by another judge. The ruling excluded evidence from Wise's trial after finding that police had violated Wise's charter rights during two searches of his home.
Ontario police secretly searched Wise's home in October 2014 and took several photographs of interesting items, including a weekly planner and a composition book with several pages torn off. .
Police seized the book after obtaining his second search warrant in 2016.
A forensic examination determined that "his two-page map with a circled X was torn out." and "Police theory was that the map revealed not only the location of Collison's remains, but also the location of other suspected deaths and known murders." He was a suspect in a serial murder case in the 1980s, and after his name was made public, he was given a warrant from the state attorney general. It won the award for apology and damages.
The composition was ruled inadmissible at Wise's trial, and the Court of Appeal rejected the King's claim to overturn the decision.
"It was clear that there were gaps in the information available to the police," the panel wrote, and investigators "tried to fill" those gaps with the opinion of an expert forensic psychiatrist. .
The doctor told the court, "It's possible [Wise] still has Collison or other alleged victim personal effects."
However, the judge ruled that "there is no evidence to support the claim," and expert opinion was common that serial killers kept "mementos" of their victims.
The Court of Appeals stated that the second search warrant in 2016 was based on "reasonable and probable grounds for believing (Wise) was guilty of other murders." Didn't produce high grounds, or a serial killer would probably keep a "memento" of the murder.
The Court also dismissed his third appeal from the King, upholding an earlier judgment that excluded "hearsay" evidence from Wise's trial.
Collison told his friend Wise that he once "threatened him to disappear" and that "he doesn't want to have me by his side anymore".
Using Andrew Duffy's files
ahelmer@postmedia.com
Twitter.com/helmera
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