Drug debt murder trial goes to jury

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This article was published 27/11/2019 (2306 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

James Morris claims he was fighting for his life when he beat Christophur Baur with a bat and slashed his throat, but the slain man’s injuries tell a different story, prosecutors say.

“James Morris is a liar,” Crown attorney Mike Himmelman told jurors in a closing argument Wednesday. “This was not an act of self-defence. The accused meant to kill Christophur Baur, plain and simple, and took elaborate steps to cover up his crime.”

Morris, 42, is on trial for second-degree murder in the Jan. 3, 2015, death.

Jurors began deliberations Wednesday afternoon, after receiving final instructions from Queen’s Bench Justice Shawn Greenberg.

The jury heard Baur was Morris’s cocaine dealer, and visited his Magnus Avenue home the night of the killing to collect a $200 drug debt. A violent struggle ended with Baur’s death. Morris wrapped Baur’s body in plastic and hid it underneath his porch, where it was discovered by Winnipeg police six weeks later.

Up until the killing, Morris and Baur were on friendly terms and there had never been any problems between them, said defence lawyer Ian Histed.

“Mr. Morris had no reason to do anything like that. The only reason Mr. Morris had to harm Christophur Baur was self-defence… Mr. Morris can’t be faulted for fighting to the death to preserve his own life,” Histed said.

In testimony last week, Morris told jurors Baur became angry when he said he had no money, and Baur threatened him with violence from his drug-dealing superiors. Morris said he shoved Baur hard, causing him to stumble backward and knock his head on a doorpost. Baur, he said, grabbed a baseball bat that was by the door and struck him on the head.

Morris said he lunged at Baur and wrenched the bat from him. He said he hit Baur a number of times with the bat before Baur managed to shove him down the basement stairs.

Morris said he feared Baur was going to beat him to death with the bat and jumped on his back and tried to choke him before slashing his throat with what he thought was a knife.

A pathologist confirmed it was that injury, which severed Baur’s jugular vein and carotid artery, that killed the 36-year-old man.

Baur had, by that time, already sustained several other injuries that would have incapacitated him or possibly rendered him unconscious, prosecutors argued, including multiple blunt-force blows to the head, several broken fingers, and a stab wound to the neck.

Baur had also been strangled with a shoelace, court was told — something Morris claimed at trial he had no memory of doing.

“This appears to have been a sustained and intense attack on the deceased,” Himmelman said. “The killing act didn’t suddenly happen in response to being hit once with the bat… There would be no basis for the accused to think force was being used against him or that Christophur Baur posed any kind of threat at the time of death.”

Morris told jurors any thoughts he had about going to the police were snuffed out when, two weeks after the killing, he was approached by one of Baur’s drug world “associates,” who told him he would kill whoever was responsible for Baur’s disappearance.

That same man, Morris testified, recruited him to assist in the drug operation in exchange for cocaine.

Himmelman urged jurors to reject Morris’s testimony, calling it a “monumental coincidence” the “associate” approached Morris over any of Baur’s other drug contacts.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca