Play fight between friends turned deadly, court hears

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This article was published 20/11/2024 (354 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A play fight between two best pals, who’d been drinking with friends, turned aggressive on Main Street last year, resulting in Leo Charles Martin-Shea being punched in the face and falling to the ground, a court was told Wednesday.

It was that fight and subsequent fall near Main Street and Stella Avenue just before 9 p.m. on April 8, 2023 that Winnipeg police allege resulted in 25-year-old Martin-Shea’s death in hospital 11 days later.

Mark Phillip Traverse, 27, is charged with manslaughter. He’s accused of throwing the punch.

His trial in Court of King’s Bench in front of Justice Ken Champagne got underway Wednesday, two days after it was scheduled to begin. The judge was forced to obtain an arrest warrant for the prosecution’s first witness when he failed to show up to court to testify on Monday.

The witness, Jordan Marsden, 27, is Traverse’s cousin and longtime friends of Martin-Shea and the others in the group that were out drinking that day.

He appeared in court in leg shackles, dressed in a grey sweatsuit given to inmates in lockup, after he was arrested Tuesday. Marsden was to be released from custody Wednesday evening.

Marsden described Traverse and Martin-Shea as best friends, under questioning by Crown prosecutor Carrie Ritchot.

The group of friends out that day, which also included Martin-Shea’s brother, Keith Martin, and a man named Brandon Chief, had met while attending R.B. Russell School together.

Marsden told court he went to Chief’s house to drink in the afternoon that day, before they went to see the victim’s brother down the street. The pair then went to the home of the accused’s sister, where they hung out and drank.

Marsden and Martin then went to Martin’s dad’s home to message Martin-Shea while they continued to drink, Marsden told court.

Their next stop was a home on Grove Street in Point Douglas, where the mother of Traverse’s children lived. There, they met up with Martin-Shea, the accused and Chief. They hung out and drank for a couple hours, while Marsden, Chief and Martin-Shea did some cocaine, the witness told court.

After an argument broke out between Traverse and his children’s mother, the accused told the group of men they should leave, so they went made their way to the Northern Hotel on Main Street near Dufferin Avenue to pick up some more booze, Marsden said.

His recollection of the time of the day’s events was hazy through his testimony.

Marsden said after Martin and others went inside the Northern to buy alcohol, the group planned to head to Chief’s house north on Main Street, but Traverse ended up in a scuffle with a stranger outside the Knight and Day Pizza shop just down the street, north of Euclid Avenue.

Marsden and Martin-Shea pulled Traverse off the stranger, who’d pulled him to the ground. On cross examination from defence lawyer Candace Olson, Marsden conceded that the stranger was still throwing punches as Martin-Shea and Marsden were pulling Traverse off, raising the possibility one of those swings struck Martin-Shea.

The group, Marsden testified, were all drunk and goofing around when he got into a play fight with Traverse on the west side of Main Street, captured on surveillance video by a pawn shop.

Later, across the street near a Main and Stella bus shack, a play fight began between Martin-Shea and Traverse, before the victim became aggressive, Marsden told court.

Marsden testified Martin-Shea threw three real punches at Traverse, who blocked them and threw a punch of his own, knocking his friend to the ground.

Marsden told court Martin-Shea appeared to protect his head as he fell. He testified he did not see any injuries on the man the rest of the night.

He was unsure if that fight happened before or after the scuffle at the pizza shop.

“Everything was all good (after the fight),” Marsden told Ritchot, though he noted Martin-Shea briefly cried as he helped him up. “We were all having fun, laughing.”

The group, including the victim, continued onto Chief’s house and drank more. Martin-Shea ended up in a hospital days later and eventually died.

Olson questioned Marsden if Martin, the brother of the victim, may have told Marsden that he had caused his brother’s injury and death.

She also raised the possibility Martin-Shea may have gotten injured elsewhere. She also pointed to Marsden’s level of intoxication and the passage of time as potentially affecting his recollection of events.

The trial is slated to continue until the end of next week. Chief, Martin, the victim’s dad and police officers are expected to testify.

Traverse made headlines in October after he was accidentally released from Headingley jail ahead of his manslaughter trial, prompting justice officials to plan a review of the circumstances.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca