Crown ‘cannot prove anything,’ accused killer tells jury

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This article was published 07/11/2018 (2687 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The man accused of shooting his roommate in the head near The Forks told jurors the prosecution has no evidence — only “speculation.”

Seated in the prisoner’s box, wearing standard-issue grey sweats, and sporting long, brown unkempt hair, Steven Anthony Morrisseau spent less than five minutes delivering his final address to the jury Wednesday in Winnipeg.

The self-represented accused killer had the last word to jurors after Crown prosecutor Rustyn Ullrich urged them over the course of about an hour-and-2-minutes to convict Morrisseau of first-degree murder.

“There is no proof of any type of murder. All the evidence is speculation. The Crown is assuming, and they cannot prove anything,” Morrisseau said.

Morrisseau is accused of planning to kill 49-year-old Jason Stinson, and shooting him under a train bridge near the riverbank after they bought alcohol together at The Forks market on June 12, 2015.

Over the past three weeks, the jury heard and saw all of the Crown’s evidence against Morrisseau, including his DNA being found on a cigarette butt near the crime scene, video surveillance, cellphone tower radar, testimony from Morrisseau’s grandparents, cousin and landlord, and records of text messages Morrisseau is accused of sending after the shooting, saying: “It’s done.”

The Crown relied on testimony from Morrisseau’s cousin, who said Morrisseau had wanted to get rid of his roommate. Morrisseau allegedly confessed in a phone call with his cousin to shooting Stinson, the Crown argued.

Morrisseau told the jury the prosecution didn’t have witnesses to the murder, a murder weapon nor a confession. He told jurors he and Stinson lived together as roommates — “They got along very well and they never had any physical altercations,” he said — but he also tried to paint an ugly picture of Stinson.

He told the jury Stinson was a “convicted rapist” and a heroin addict who had been prescribed several different types of medication.

Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Sheldon Lanchbery cautioned the jury about those claims, saying there is no evidence to support them.

Morrisseau also claimed police didn’t have a judge-endorsed warrant to arrest him for murder. They did so 13 days after an off-duty police officer discovered Stinson’s body.

As part of the Crown’s evidence, jurors were shown video surveillance of Stinson and Morrisseau together at a Garden City-area Foot Locker athletic clothing store, and Ullrich urged them to compare it to surveillance footage of two men walking along Israel Asper Way near The Forks on the day of the alleged murder.

Only the men’s backs can be seen in the footage, and only one of the men is later seen walking back.

Ullrich argued the footage showed Stinson’s final walk, and Morrisseau — heavy set with a dark buzz cut — walked back alone after the shooting, before he boarded a transit bus with a green duffel bag the Crown argued had a sawed-off shotgun inside. Video from inside the bus shows a man on a cellphone.

Ullrich argued the man was Morrisseau, who was 29 when he was arrested in 2015, and he was sending texts he would later delete.

Before Stinson’s body was found, the Crown argued Morrisseau was texting a friend to move in, saying he needed a roommate. Morrisseau is accused of texting “It’s done,” and “I just split a wig bro,” after the shooting, in messages police found on a computer backup of the prepaid phone they believed Morrisseau was using.

Lanchbery is set to give jurors legal instructions before they begin their deliberations Thursday.

katie.may@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @thatkatiemay