Trial begins for fatal 2020 rush hour stabbing

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This article was published 27/03/2023 (895 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ryan Kelly Legary died July 23, 2020, after he was stabbed in the chest following a dispute in the parking lot of a Winnipeg restaurant.

On Monday, a jury began hearing evidence in the trial of the man accused of killing him. Rahim Ahmadzai, 22, has pleaded not guilty to manslaughter.

“Please do not be intimidated by the charge — it is serious, but the evidence is straightforward,” Crown attorney Mark Kantor told jurors in a brief opening address.

Legary’s family and friends filled one side of the court gallery, with a number of supporters for the accused sitting on the other.

Kantor said Ahmadzai and Legary were each in their separate vehicles immediately prior to the “rush hour” killing near the intersection of Lagimodiere Boulevard and Fermor Avenue.

The Crown did not provide jurors with a theory of what precipitated the attack.

Former Winnipeg-based pathologist Dr. Dennis Rhee, testifying remotely via video from California, said Legary, 43, died as the result of a single stab wound to the heart.

Legary also suffered a non-lethal slashing wound to his left arm, possibly sustained as he was defending himself, Rhee told jurors.

A toxicology examination showed Legary had cocaine in his system, but that was not a contributing factor in his death, the doctor said.

Officers with the Winnipeg Police Service forensic identification unit testified a blood trail led from a Tim Hortons parking lot to the gas pump area of an adjacent Petro-Canada service station where Legary was found on the ground. A bloody T-shirt with a slicing tear in the chest area was found in a garbage bin.

Two of Legary’s family members left court in tears — one during Rhee’s testimony, the other as WPS Const. Daniel Sufuentes told jurors about blood stains found in the front passenger-seat area of a red Nissan Cube that Ahmadzai is accused of occupying at the time of the killing.

The trial is set for nine days.

During that time, jurors will be shown security video capturing the killing and hear testimony from several witnesses in the area at the time of the attack, as well as the police officer who arrested Ahmadzai and a DNA scientist, Kantor said.

Jurors will also be provided with cellphone tower evidence related to a cellphone number “associated” to Ahmadzai and the “general location of that cellphone user around the time of the incident,” the Crown said.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca