Accused killer responded to punch in the face with bullet in victim’s chest, murder trial told

When Bill Brian Duck punched Adam Morrissette in the face for no reason, Morrissette could have responded in kind, a jury was told Monday.

Instead, Morrissette pulled out a handgun and shot the 28-year-old man in the chest, killing him.

“Adam Morrissette discharged a firearm for what could have been a fistfight,” prosecutor Minh Nguyen told jurors at the opening of Morrissette’s second-degree murder trial.

Morrissette’s “disproportionate” act of aggression “transformed a brief encounter between strangers into murder,” Nguyen said.

Duck died in hospital April 27, 2024, a few hours after he was shot outside a friend’s Flora Avenue home.

Prosecutors allege Morrissette, 52, and three friends pulled up to another friend’s home just two doors over from where Duck was standing outside with a friend when Duck, “in an intoxicated state,” walked up to Morrissette and said something before punching him in the face and walking away.

“The accused responded by taking out a handgun and firing one shot into the side of Mr. Duck’s chest,” Nguyen said.

Duck staggered back to his friend’s home and collapsed at the front door before being taken inside. Police and paramedics arrived minutes later and Duck was rushed to Health Sciences Centre where he died.

“Regardless of who initiated the altercation or the lifestyle Mr. Duck had at the time, what happened to Mr. Duck was morally wrong and a criminal act,” Nguyen said.

Jurors will hear testimony from witnesses who “might be quite willing to recount what they heard and saw,” and others who “might be more reluctant,” including the woman whose home Duck was visiting, Nguyen said.

“When you hear her evidence, remember this is a witness who saw her friend moments before he died,” Nguyen said. “I expect it will be hard for (her) to talk about this traumatic event.”

Police arrested Morrissette nine days later, after stopping him for an unrelated matter near the intersection of Burrows Avenue and McKenzie Street.

A subsequent analysis of his cellphone revealed text exchanges between Morrissette and another party discussing the cash purchase of a Glock handgun, Nguyen said.

Morrissette provided a police statement denying shooting Duck while at the same time confirming he was the only person in his vehicle who interacted with Duck,” Nguyen said.

Nguyen told jurors a friend of Morrissette’s is expected to testify Morrissette showed him a loaded handgun sometime before the killing and later admitted to shooting and killing someone.

On another occasion following the shooting, Morrissette asked his friend “whether he thought he could get bail on a murder charge,” Nguyen alleged.

The trial is set to run four weeks.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca