10/28/2020 Trial opens in Omar Wellington murder | The Star

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CRIME

Trial opens in Omar Wellington murder

By Betsy Powell Courts Bureau
 Mon., Nov. 7, 2011  1 min. read

Seventeen-year-old Omar Wellington was confined and savagely beaten for hours before he was stabbed to death in Flemingdon
Park five years ago.
He did not defend himself, fight back or try to escape. No one intervened, said anything to stop it or called for help.

Crown attorney Linda Shin recited those disturbing details Monday in Superior Court as the Crown opened its case against J.G.,
who has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. He was under 18 when the killing took place July 14, 2006, so cannot be identified
under the Youth Criminal Justice Act.

Two young men have already pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily harm. Two others pleaded guilty to aggravated assault.

Another man pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for his role in “aiding and encouraging” in Wellington’s murder — payback
because the teen did not deliver on a promised gun for the “enraged” group, Shin told jurors.

After the youths kicked, punched and stomped on Wellington’s head, he was stabbed 31 times. The fatal wound that penetrated his
jugular vein was in a cluster of six stab wounds to the right of his neck.

The prosecutor told jurors they will hear evidence an older brother of one of the young men who pleaded guilty — and a cousin to
two of them — saw J.G. with Wellington on a bench not far from 61 Grenoble, a housing complex near Don Mills Rd. and Eglinton
Ave. E.
“He was surprised to see that Omar was badly beaten,” Shin told the court. “He heard … (the defendant) say he was going to get a
knife and then … left for a short while and came back to this group by the bench,” she said.
The young man, who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia, heard J.G. tell Wellington words to the effect of “come with me, you’re
dead,” Shin said.
J.G. and J.J. then walked off with Wellington, she said.

“The next time Omar was seen was the next day, dead in the ravine,” Shin said.
The trial resumes Monday.

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