Jury continues deliberations in Bhogal murder trial

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That Jitesh Bhogal killed Autumn Taggart in her bedroom in the early hours of June 10, 2018 is not in dispute.

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The defense has admitted that he killed the mother of a child, but that he was so intoxicated from cocaine use that he did not know what he was doing and should therefore be found guilty of murder.

What a Windsor jury has been deliberating behind closed doors since Monday at 5 p.m., and will continue Wednesday, is determining whether the young General Motors engineer is guilty of a much more serious charge.

If Bhogal, who was 27 at the time, intended to kill the young mother, then he is guilty of murder in the second degree. And if the jury finds that he also sexually assaulted her, which the prosecution alleges, he could be found guilty of first-degree murder, which carries an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole for 25 years.

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Superior Court Judge Renee Pomerance spent more than two hours Monday describing the relevant law to jurors, summarizing the evidence for the defense and the Crown that was presented during six weeks of trial testimony by witnesses and experts, as well as well as describing the closing arguments of the attorneys for both sides.

Pomerance told jurors that their verdict must be unanimous and that if there is any “reasonable doubt” they must find in favor of the defendant. Fault beyond a reasonable doubt, he explained, does not mean probable or probable fault, but that determination of fault does not require absolute certainty either. Intoxication is not a defense, but “if intoxication prevents someone from understanding the consequences of actions, then it is a defense,” he said.

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“Use your good common sense,” the judge instructed the jury.

On Monday night, the jury sent a note to the judge, asking for “a definition of sexual assault that applies to murder in the first degree.” The judge reminded the jury that the sexual assault charge against Bhogal is based “entirely on circumstantial evidence.”

The trial heard that DNA belonging almost certainly to Bhogal was found in Taggart’s breasts and anogenital area. Although he forgot much of the encounter, Bhogal testified that he recalled attempting CPR to revive Taggart, and the defense argued that the DNA from Taggart’s body could also have been the result of a “secondary transfer” from other objects.

On Tuesday night, the jury requested to hear a recording of the pretrial testimony of pathologist Dr. Elena Tugaleva, who performed the post-mortem examination, specifically related to the anogenital injuries of the deceased.

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Taggart was a complete stranger to Bhogal. His apartment building in West Windsor was next to a crack house frequented by two drug addicts who had run into Bhogal that night and agreed to secure cocaine for him, a drug he said at trial he had never used before and was “curious ” to try.

Bhogal, who spent two days on the witness stand, most of the time under Crown cross-examination, testified that he did not remember key parts of the night, including why and how he entered Taggart’s room. He agreed when questioned that “it looks like I went up on the balcony” to gain access and that it was “likely” that I was at Taggart’s apartment looking for the drug dealer who had just ripped him off.

“Sometimes terrible things happen unintentionally,” defense attorney Peter Thorning told the jury on Monday, adding that his client was severely intoxicated or suffered from cocaine-induced psychosis.

Assistant Crown Counsel Kim Bertholet said in her closing that Bhogal was angry that he was scammed that night and that his version of events was “a series of selfish explanations and convenient gaps in memory.” Taggart was killed to prevent him from speaking to police, the Crown alleges.

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