Family defends victim’s legacy

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This article was published 03/02/2020 (2157 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

During his killer’s trial, Christophur Baur’s life was reduced to his illegal job title: drug dealer.

In a Winnipeg courtroom Monday, family and friends reclaimed the man they knew.

“The world lost a gentle, caring man,” Baur’s aunt, Kathy Levesque, told court, reading from a victim-impact statement. “If you needed love, he would give it freely. He would always look for the good in people.”

Baur, 36, was demonized, while his killer, James Morris, was portrayed by his lawyer as a victim who was acting in self-defence, Levesque said. “I should not feel this terrible need to defend who Chris was.”

Baur lived with Tourette syndrome and worked hard to overcome it, Levesque said. “Unfortunately, he had an even greater struggle in life… drug addiction.”

It was that addiction, prosecutors argued at Morris’s trial, that pushed Baur into selling drugs to support his own habit.

On Jan. 3, 2015, Morris killed Baur, following a dispute over a $200 drug debt. He hid the body underneath the porch at his home, where it was discovered wrapped in plastic by Winnipeg police six weeks later.

Morris, 43, stood trial in November for second-degree murder but was convicted by a jury of manslaughter.

In finding Morris guilty of manslaughter, jurors rejected his claim he was acting in self-defence, but found he did not have the required intent to kill when he beat Baur with a bat and slashed his neck.

Prosecutors Monday recommended Queen’s Bench Justice Shawn Greenberg sentence Morris to 15 years in prison, arguing Baur’s killing amounted to a “quasi-murder.”

At trial, Morris claimed Baur became angry when he said he had no money, and threatened him with violence from his drug-dealing superiors.

Morris said he shoved Baur, causing him to stumble backward and strike his head on a doorpost. Baur grabbed a baseball bat and struck him on the head, Morris said.

Morris said he wrenched the bat away and hit him on the head before Baur shoved him down the basement stairs. Morris said he feared Baur was going to beat him to death with the bat.

He said he jumped on Baur’s 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 him.

Prosecutors urged jurors reject Morris’s claim of self-defence, arguing by the time Baur’s neck was slashed, he had already sustained several other injuries that would have incapacitated him or possibly rendered him unconscious, 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 shoe lace.

Defence lawyer Ian Histed said Morris’s actions exceeded self-defence, but the circumstances of the killing show he was provoked. Baur “could have left (after Morris shoved him), but he didn’t do that,” and instead grabbed the baseball bat, Histed said.

“There is no evidence Mr. Morris prevented Mr. Baur from leaving,” he said.

Morris apologized to Baur’s family, saying he was ashamed of his attempt to cover up the killing.

“I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to wait so long and to receive such horrible news,” he said. “I know there is no amount of words, no apology that could ever be enough for all the pain and suffering you have had to endure.”

Greenberg will sentence Morris on Friday.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca