Forensic evidence paints picture of mayhem surrounding killing of Logan Nayneecassum

Police recovered a shell casing, a copper bullet head and an intact bullet on the floor inside Aria Food and Spirits, and two other cartridge casings in the parking lot outside, hours after a fatal shooting at the Saskatoon bar, court heard Friday.

The ammunition — and photos of a large pool of blood near an emergency exit — hint at the violence that unfolded.

Afrah Abdi is on trial at Court of King's Bench charged with second-degree murder in the Aug. 21, 2020, death of Logan Nayneecassum. The jury trial before Justice Mona Dovell began Dec. 4.

Bar manager Travis Philley testified earlier that he heard "a couple pops" from the back of the bar area just before 3 a.m. CST. He also said he'd seen two other men with guns inside the club.

Neither Philley nor two other people from the bar that night reported any exchange of gunfire, or any gunfire from outside.

Saskatoon police Staff Sgt. Mikael Ziola testified that it took he and colleague Sgt. Matthew Maloney several hours to trace the trajectory of the bullet that killed Nayneecassum.

"I was going to find it," he said.

The .40 calibre bullet had passed through Nayneecassum's right leg, causing massive bleeding, before bouncing off a metal table pedestal, passing through a bench cushion and coming to rest inside a small planter on a window, he said.

Ziola said the officers recovered a spent cartridge casing for a .40 calibre bullet underneath a nearby table. They also discovered an intact .40 calibre bullet in a washroom alcove.

Outside, they located another .40 calibre casing and a spent casing for a .357 Winchester bullet.

The officers also seized a glass tumbler with a black straw and a broken gold chain from a table where Nayneecassum sat before the altercation.

Defence lawyer Leo Adler questioned Maloney earlier Friday about why he and Ziola only collected the items that they did for evidence. For instance, they did not seize other glasses from the bar, or cigarette butts inside and out. They took three DNA swabs from objects near the scene where Nayneecassum was shot.

Maloney said they only selected items they believed may have had a bearing on the case, based on what they knew that morning.

Under re-exam by prosecutor Michael Pilon, Maloney said they needed to be careful of simply collecting everything in the bar, because the national forensics analysis laboratory wanted officers to explain exactly why any given piece of evidence needed to be analyzed.