VIOLENCE, DRUGS - DEATH

Editor's note: The following story contains graphic descriptions that may
be disturbing to some readers.

In the early hours of July 24, 1999, Joseph Dunn wasn't sleeping well.

Getting out of bed in his apartment at 16 Russell St., he looked outside to
try to find out what was making the noise that was bothering him.

Before he got to his bedroom window he heard something: The sound of an
aluminum baseball bat as it cracked against a helpless teenager's skull and
body.

"My attention was drawn by the sound of like a 'ding,' like the sound of a
baseball bat hitting a ball," Dunn told a hushed courtroom months after
Curtis Charles MacDonald was killed.

"It's a very hollow sound ... There was a 'ding' sound. There was kind of
an echo almost."

This dramatic testimony came a year ago during the preliminary hearing for
Kingston's Joe Badour, 20 at the time. He and Brandon York, 21 at the time,
were convicted this week of manslaughter in the brutal killing of
MacDonald, 18.

Following the guilty pleas, testimony given at the preliminary hearing in
2000 can now be published. This evidence has until now been covered by a
publication ban.

Since Monday, The Whig-Standard has been reviewing court transcripts to
paint a more complete picture of one of the most horrific crimes in
Kingston history.

Testimony given in the case also paints a grim and vivid picture of the
drug culture that exists among some of the city's young people and which
Dunn was seeing with his own eyes that night.

Living in a rough area of Kingston, Dunn had seen fights before. But none
of his experiences prepared him for the scene played out in his building's
parking lot.

A group of five or six young men were taking turns punching and kicking
MacDonald.

Five or six on one - and the gang's leader used more than his feet and
fists that night.

He was armed with a bat.

"The one was hitting him with the bat and then he would step back and
couple of others would step up and start punching and kicking," Dunn said,
adding he saw the man with the bat connect with his target.

"The first one was straight down with the baseball bat. I heard several
words: 'You've screwed with the wrong person this time. You don't know who
I am. You don't know what I'm capable of.' "

Later that weekend, MacDonald's battered body was found in the water off
Belle Island. He was found wrapped in a carpet and so badly beaten that a
pathologist, Dr. Sally Ford, was unable to determine a single cause of death.

"My opinion I wrote was severe closed brain injury in association with
asphyxia due to neck compression, restraint and terminal drowning," Ford said.

She said MacDonald was tied up before he was thrown into the water.

"His hands were tied together in front of his chest by heavy-duty
electrical cord and one loop of this cord was bound tightly around his
chest and there were two loops of cord loosely around his neck," she said
in court.

Ford also described a 15-centimetre scrape she found on the front of
MacDonald's neck. She said compression of the neck took place when the
victim was still alive.

"The ligature mark sloped upwards," she said.

"If the ligature had just been tied around his neck, it would have been
more of a straight line. But, the fact is sloped upwards looks as though
some traction force was applied."

Frontenac County Courthouse, Oct. 22, 2001

More than two years after MacDonald was killed in a crime the violence and
senselessness of which shocked even veteran police investigators, it is now
clear what Joseph Badour is capable of.

On Monday, he stood in the prisoner's box and pleaded guilty to
manslaughter in MacDonald's death.

There was none of the bravado and tough talk from the killer that Dunn said
he heard the night MacDonald died.

Quietly, Badour stood before the judge and confirmed he was pleading guilty
to manslaughter.

Crown attorney Bruce Griffith announced he and defence lawyer Patrick
McCann had agreed on a sentence range of 18 to 20 years.

York stood with Badour and entered the same plea.

York's lawyer, Clyde Smith, and Griffith agreed to present the judge with a
sentence range of eight to 10 years.

Griffith provided a brief sketch of the details of the crime. In November,
when Mr. Justice Thomas Lally makes his final sentencing decision, Griffith
said he'll have more comments for the judge when the pair are sent to prison.

MONTREAL STREET

APRIL 28, 1999, 2:30 P.M.

As a car sped through city streets that day, passersby couldn't have known
two of the people in it were about to become killers: Badour and Philip
Melville Moore.

They pulled up to Gordon's Grocery on Montreal Street. Moore and his
girlfriend, Theresa Pasquino, and another passenger, Michelle McKee,
entered the store.

Alfred James Livingstone was already inside and something sparked a
confrontation between Livingstone and the others. He and Pasquino exchanged
angry words.

Moore left and returned to the car.

In the meantime, Badour entered to buy a drink.

There was another confrontation, which ended when Livingstone struck
Badour, propelling him into some shelving, court heard.

McKee, who was never charged, fled the store to tell the others what
happened. Witnesses saw Moore then leave the car with a weapon and head
back to the store. As Livingstone was exiting, Moore shot Livingstone in
the parking lot.

Severely wounded, the man ran onto Montreal Street where he collapsed in
the median, face down, and died. Witnesses said he appeared to be bleeding
from the head.

Moore, Pasquino, McKee and Badour fled north along Montreal Street at high
speed. Their vehicle was later found abandoned behind the Kingston Mills Esso.

The next day, Moore and Pasquino were arrested at a gas station west of
Kingston.

Moore was not charged with Livingstone's murder until May 6. In between,
Badour was charged, but this charge was later dropped.

Moore later pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in
prison. With Badour back out on the streets, word spread in the city's
criminal subculture that he had turned on Moore to save his own skin.

"The 'rat' thing was out there," Kingston Police Det. Sgt. Andy Bird said
this week.

"It was perception rather than reality," Badour's lawyer, Patrick McCann
said forcefully this week. "He did not implicate Moore."

Whatever the facts, suspicion remained.

More than one witness at Badour's preliminary hearing testified that
MacDonald thought Badour was the type of person who would become a rat.

"[MacDonald] said that he heard that Joe [Badour] ratted on Philip Moore
for the Jamie Livingstone murder in the Heights," Kevin Paul Snyder, who is
still facing a charge of aggravated assault related to MacDonald's death,
told Justice Paul Megginson of the Ontario Court of Justice last April.

"Charlie just didn't think that Joe was solid and ... thought maybe Joe was
a snitch," Edward T.J. Wright, who also faces an aggravated assault charge
in the incident, told the preliminary hearing.

If MacDonald did indeed make such comments, it seems the 18-year-old, who
was new to street culture, unwittingly unleashed a flurry of rage and
violence that led to his death.

Police caution there are only assumptions that MacDonald's death can be
directly related to the shooting death of Livingstone three months earlier.

Like most 18-year-olds, MacDonald wanted independence. Only a month before
his death, his parents helped him move into a Queen Street apartment where
he lived by himself.

MacDonald kept in regular contact with his loved ones on Wolfe Island.

"He wanted to start his life on his own," his mother, Claire Gurnsey, told
The Whig-Standard during an interview she gave only days after MacDonald
was killed.

"He finally thought he had his freedom. Now, he really does."

MacDonald grew up on Wolfe Island and later attended Regiopolis-Notre Dame
High School. He dreamed of travelling or becoming a chef after completing
high school.

On his own in Kingston, he had friends who lived in the apartment building
at 16 Russell St.

According to testimony at Badour's preliminary hearing, MacDonald fell in
with some bad company. His former girlfriend testified he had been involved
with drugs.

JULY 23-24, 1999

16 RUSSELL ST., APT. 12

A small group had gathered that night, some to do drugs, some just to hang
around.

A pair of teenage girls rented the apartment where the group, including
Badour, Brandon York, Charles MacDonald and others had come together.

Some planned to attend a rave, an all-night dance often fuelled by drugs,
after midnight.

Others were already doing drugs. One of them was Edward Wright, who later
told a court he'd used speed that night.

"It's just because the point in time that all this took place there wasn't
too much sleeping going on, 'cause if you do speed, you don't sleep," the
young man testified. "So, when you do that first shot in the morning, it's
just like waking up after you've slept for two days straight, you
understand? Like you just have so much energy.

"The energy flows through your system. It goes from the tips of your toes
to your fingers. You just want to hear music in your ears. You just start
moving. Some people even pace."

Unfortunately for MacDonald, Badour, York and a group of others did much
more than pace when the clock went past midnight.

Wright said Badour was already talking about attacking MacDonald.

"There was definitely words about cutting his head off," he testified.

"So there was talk about that and discussion ... How we were going to get
him, you know, get him in the back room? Put some blinds up so nobody can
see, you know, nobody will hear him scream."

MacDonald came and went from the party unaware of what Badour was talking
to some of the others about. Until Wright walked over to the couch where he
was sitting and starting punching him.

"I let go of him and he was sort of leaning back on the couch and I was
standing in front of him," Wright testified.

"And then all hell broke lose."

Badour started hitting MacDonald, and others joined in.

"Then, it wasn't like a long time," Wright said.

"But everything was like in slow motion. So, it's like everything stopped.
Everyone, like there was no noise."

Things only got worse.

Badour went across the hall, Wright said, and returned with an aluminum
baseball bat. In the confusion that followed, some witnesses said Badour
only threatened MacDonald with the bat, some said he hit him with it.

What they all agree on is that the attack continued.

Crown attorney Griffith said this week that Brandon York told everyone they
had to move it outside because the girls who were renting the apartment
were getting upset.

Wright was asked if he heard any words from MacDonald. He said he only
heard gurgling.

In the parking lot, the beating continued.

Joseph Dunn's girlfriend, Erin Naomi Cadue, also woke up because of the
noise from the parking lot.

'KICKING HIM'

"They carried some small guy out into the driveway and just started kicking
him and hitting him repeatedly," she testified.

She told Griffith her boyfriend tried to get the gang to stop the onslaught.

"What do you mean by that?" Griffith asked.

"Joe called out for them to stop."

"Did they make any response?"

"Yeah."

"What did they say?"

"They said he deserved it."

"Did they say why he deserved it?"

"Because he called somebody a 'goof.' "

Cadue testified she saw MacDonald try to sit up and cover his head.

"And then they started beating him again," she said.

"They pushed him to the ground."

Snyder told the court MacDonald had said a few things during the assault.

"He said stop," Snyder testified.

"He wanted to know why this was happening."

Snyder said by that point, MacDonald was already visibly injured and
Badour's rage had not dissipated.

"I seen the bat in his hand," he said. "He kicked his way into the
apartment and I heard an echo of a bat hitting something and I looked into
the apartment [from the doorway] and I saw that [MacDonald's] hand was
either dislocated or broken."

"He [Badour] was very angry. He didn't really seem like that he knew what
he was doing. He ... just he lost it."

Another witness, Michael Tomlinson, who was 18 at the time and now faces a
charge of aggravated assault arising out of the incident, said he also hit
MacDonald.

"He landed on me and I gave him a couple of shots," he said. "Like, in the
stomach."

He told the preliminary hearing that MacDonald had a "stunned" look on his
face as Badour, York and at least three others dragged him outside.

Tomlinson, who was an intravenous drug user who used drugs that night, said
Badour was holding the bat with one hand and that Badour might have hit
MacDonald one or two times before the group was yelled at from the
apartment building.

In court, he appeared to play down the seriousness of the assault.

"It wasn't, like, that bad," Tomlinson said. "Mostly just, it wasn't bad.
It wasn't as vicious as most fights I've seen ... It didn't make him cry so
I [didn't] think they really hurt him too much."

He told Badour's lawyer, Patrick McCann, that Badour was on drugs.

On Monday, Griffith said one of the reasons the Crown agreed to accept the
manslaughter guilty pleas was "substantial evidence of drug use by the
accused that night." He said the drug use by Badour might have made it
difficult for the Crown to prove intent, which is required to obtain a
murder conviction.

Under further questioning, Tomlinson also told McCann that a Kingston
Police investigator, Det. Brian Begbie, showed him a photo of Badour during
the investigation.

"It had a cross on it," he said, 'like a [gun] scope cross on the face of it."

Tomlinson testified he left the scene and returned inside because he was
afraid police would arrive and discover the drugs he had with him.

He said he injected some heroin and went to bed.

Wright had a different version than Dunn regarding the exchange of words
between Badour and Dunn.

'GOOF'

"How would you like being, you know, called a rat, goof?" he claimed Badour
yelled at Dunn.

"And Joe Dunn was like, 'No, well, I wouldn't.' And then Joe Badour said,
'Well then shut the [expletive] up.''

Crown attorney Griffith said this week that this portion of the attack ended.

"Joseph Badour and Brandon York and perhaps others carry Charles MacDonald
back into Badour's apartment, number 11," Griffith said in court Monday.
"Badour and York have been identified as being in Apartment 11 with Charles
MacDonald."

Griffith said forensic and pathological evidence prove that MacDonald was
then beaten again, choked bound up with cords and rolled up in a carpet.

Dunn told the court he called 911 as he saw a car drive into the building's
parking lot. Earlier, he said, he witnessed the victim of the fight being
taken inside the apartment. Then he said he heard music and a shower running.

Later, he said he saw three men leave the building carrying a roll of
carpet, which they loaded onto the back seat of a car. York had just stolen
the car to make it easier to dump the victim, the Crown alleged in court.

Dunn said he didn't provide his name and used a cellphone so a dispatcher
wouldn't have known where he was calling from.

Dunn said he phoned back 15 or 20 minutes later when police hadn't arrived.

"I told [the dispatcher] what I saw out back," he said in court.

'BODY'

"I told her that I figured the car was probably stolen and that I believed
the carpet that had been loaded was [holding] a body and that they should
send someone over right away."

Yesterday, McCann, Badour's lawyer, pointed out that Dunn didn't identify
Badour as the person with the bat.

"Certainly, the evidence at the preliminary from Dunn left a great deal of
doubt about the identity of the person with the bat compared to the
evidence of other witnesses," he said.

Witness Tammy Louise Roberts, who lived at 477 Rideau St., an apartment
building that backs directly onto the area of Belle Park, said she was up
early Saturday morning and saw Badour and York coming toward her building.

"I was looking out my window when I seen them coming up the hill from
behind my apartment," she testified.

"And they were like panicked, like they were all sweating and both faces
were flushed like they had been running. And they just seemed very anxious
to get into the apartment building. They had bits of blood splattered on them."

Roberts also said they had wet clothes. She said she let them in and they
went up to her sister's apartment.

Later, she testified, she saw Badour, who had showered and changed. She
also said she saw York ride away on a bicycle.

About 30 hours later, MacDonald's body was found in the water off Belle Park.

"Criminal investigators described the acts of violence inflicted on the
deceased as being not only senseless but brutal, and, given the helpless
situation the victim was in, [it was] an extremely cowardly act," Kingston
Police spokesman Mike Schultz said at the time.

Kingston Police arrived at 16 Russell St. later that morning in response to
Dunn's 911 call.

The investigation then went into high gear.

On Aug. 2, 1999, Kingston Police received information that Badour was holed
up in a third-floor apartment at 181 Hillendale Ave.

They responded, which led to an all-day standoff. The floor Badour was on
had to be evacuated. Sounds of broken glass could be heard.

Police cut off the power and Badour eventually surrendered.

In court, Begbie described the scene that greeted police when they entered
the apartment.

"Destruction," he said.

"It was hard to put into words. There was - it looked like an attempt had
been made to set it on fire. There was furniture destroyed. There were
holes in the wall. There was a large ... axe embedded in the wall. There
were things broken. It was just, it was just destroyed."

Once Badour was in custody, Begbie's notes, as discussed in court, reveal
how polluted by drugs the young killer was.

Within hours of the arrest, Badour had the shakes. He was dry-heaving, cold
and in no condition to be questioned.

Brandon York, who was originally charged with being an accessory to the
death, was later charged with first-degree murder.

Both will be sentenced Nov. 14.

OTHER CHARGES

The case has spawned other charges. Badour himself is accused of attempting
to persuade a witness not to testify against him, which he is alleged to
have done from pre-trial detention at the Quinte Regional Detention Centre.
That charge is still before the courts.

Badour's girlfriend, Katherine Raposo, was charged with obstructing justice
and uttering threats at another witness involved in the case.

Her trial will be held in November.

Veteran investigators are still stunned by the brutality surrounding
MacDonald's death.

"It was horrific," Begbie told The Whig-Standard this week. "Every time I
see the [MacDonald] family I want to cry ... You look in their eyes and
nothing is going to bring their son back. Nothing the justice system does,
nothing we do."