2 men guilty in murder of Toronto youth worker Thane Murray
CBC
Two men have been found guilty of murdering a Regent Park youth worker and attempting to murder two of his friends in a 2021 shooting, following a decision in a Toronto court Saturday night.
Noah Anderson, 23, and Junior Jahmal Harvey, 23, were among four masked men who opened fire downtown in a parking lot in Regent Park on Sept. 18, 2021, killing 27-year-old Thane Murray and injuring two of his friends, a jury found.
The group fired 59 bullets from their handguns that night. Murray was hit 14 times, including in the head, and died at the scene. His two childhood friends both survived the shooting, but one was in a coma for weeks.
On Saturday, after a day and a half of deliberation, the jury found both Anderson and Harvey guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder. They will receive automatic life sentences with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Determining the identity of the shooters was key during the trial.
The crown had built a circumstantial case based on surveillance video tracking Anderson, Harvey and the two others shooters driving to and from Regent Park in a Nissan Altima rented under Anderson's name.
Video shown to the jury captured the men walking to the car parked on nearby McGill Street after leaving the Chelsea Hotel, where Anderson had rented a room, shortly before the shooting. Footage also captured the men returning in the same car and parking on the same street 30 minutes after the shooting and reentering the hotel.
Footage also showed that the men changed clothes and shoes before and after the murder.
The Crown argued the motive for the attack was a neighbourhood rivalry.
The Crown had played a rap song for the jury, found on Anderson's phone and recorded 10 days after the shooting, in which they argued lyrics credited to Anderson and Harvey described the murder. In the song, titled "Peppered," the rappers call themselves the "RP killas" — RP referring to Regent Park — and rap about a head shot that "sent that boy straight to Jesus."
Anderson and Harvey were both 20 at the time of the shooting.
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