Defendant in Laval’s teen murder case knew he was going to fight: Crown

Article content

The teenager who killed his best friend in Laval last year knew he was being called into a fight and armed himself with two knives, a prosecutor said Friday while arguing that the defendant should be convicted of first-degree murder.

Article content

While presenting final arguments at the trial of the teenager, who was 16 when he was charged with the murder of his friend in early January 2020, prosecutor Marie-Ève ​​Vautier told Superior Court Judge Catherine Perreault that the Crown’s theory is that he went to a parking lot in Laval with the intention of fighting with at least one of the five boys who were waiting for him.

The defendant was a minor when he was charged with the murder and his identity is protected by the Juvenile Criminal Justice Law. Publication of the identity of the victim and the other four children who were present the night he was killed was prohibited.

The motive behind the murder, Vautier said, was the defendant’s frustration, built up over days before the victim was stabbed on January 1, 2020, in the parking lot next to Marc-Aurèle-Fortin park, a place where children used to use exit.

Article content

An argument, carried out through a series of text messages, began between the defendant and the victim’s brother in late December 2019.The victim’s brother wrote a vulgar comment, about a girl that the victim liked. defendant, on Discord, an application that the defendant and his friends used to communicate with each other when playing the online video game League of Legends. Eventually, the victim’s brother stopped responding to the defendant’s messages and his brother took over the heated exchange. It deteriorated to a point where the three teens were challenging each other to come up to a fight.

The defendant testified that he went to the parking lot in hopes of peacefully ending the dispute with his longtime friends. But with comments like, “You’re going to eat what you deserve,” texted the night of December 30, 2019, it was clear that the defendant knew there was going to be a fight when he was summoned by the victim. into the parking lot two nights later, Vautier said.

Article content

His closing arguments also clarified the Crown’s position on how the police recovered two knives in a high bank of snow after the victim was killed. She told Perreault that evidence heard during the trial suggests that the defendant brought both knives, even if he admitted that he only brought one from his family’s kitchen, and the victim was stabbed once.

“The evidence is that he was the only one armed that night,” Vautier said while answering a series of questions from Perreault about the theory that the defendant was armed with both knives.

All the other children who were present that night testified that neither they nor the victim were armed, the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Guy Poupart spent two days arguing that his client acted in self-defense or that the stabbing was an accident during a fight in which both brothers confronted their client.

Article content

The fight began immediately after the defendant arrived at the parking lot. The surviving brother testified that he grabbed the hood of the defendant’s jacket while his brother punched him in the side of the face just before he was stabbed.

Vautier countered the self-defense argument by pointing out that the stab was 15 centimeters deep, indicating that the entire blade of the knife entered the victim’s body.

The victim was stabbed in the back and no defensive wounds were found on his body.

“” It was a fight that was very brief and that indicates that the knife was drawn very quickly, “Vautier said. “(The accused) intended to kill (the victim) once (the victim) touched him.”

[email protected]