Jeremy Hall says his bonfire was for burning stolen truck parts, not cremation

Sitting by a bonfire soothes the soul of accused killer Jeremy Hall.

For that reason - and to burn up the interiors of stolen vehicles - he started fires all the time.

But he never lit a fire to incinerate the remains of Billy Mason.

He didn't kill Billy.

He never even spoke to Billy. Or abducted him at gunpoint from his apartment. Or had a beef to settle with him for a drug rip that went bad and got Hall's house shot up.

No.

None of those things he is accused of doing are true, he says.

Hall just likes sitting by a fire.

I had a fire every chance I could," he testified at his first-degree murder trial Wednesday. It's my Zen. It's what brought peace to my soul."

This is the first time a courtroom has heard Hall talk about what he is accused of doing to Billy in February 2006.

At his first trial, in 2013, Hall didn't take the stand. In fact, while in the witness box this week he said: I didn't really participate in my first trial, because my mind wasn't there."

He didn't elaborate.

A jury found Hall guilty of first-degree murder at that trial. The Crown's star witness then - and now - was his partner in crime, Jason Lusted, who says he saw Hall shoot Billy, 27, and then days later helped him burn his body at the Alma farm where Hall was living.

Hall successfully appealed his conviction and is now being retried.

Hall, 46, is a stout five-foot-seven, bearded and mostly bald, with tattoos on his neck and hands. He wears glasses.

Hall shuffled in leg shackles from the prisoner's box to the witness box. He winked at his daughter, his only supporter in the courtroom.

He spent the day speaking softly and slowly as his lawyer, Renee Gregor, took him on a tour of his life.

Hall grew up in Hamilton and began breaking the law when he was nine or 10.

I just started escaping from home and living on the street because it was the better option."

By 2006, he had a well-oiled" crew to help him pull off break-ins, drug dealer robberies, drug and gun trafficking, car thefts and more.

He met Lusted in Barton Street jail in 1999 and they moved to the same penitentiary.

It was as good a friendship as you can expect in jail," Hall said.

While in, they plotted how to wreak havoc" when they got out. When they were released, they hit the ground running, just robbin' and stealin.'"

Pitter patter, let's get at er," Hall said, using one of his favourite phrases. (Easy peasy lemon squeezy" and It ain't no thing but a chicken wing" are others.)

They started taking orders for thefts: vintage cars, boats, tractors, snowmobiles - whatever a customer" wanted, they would supply it.

Hall also ripped drug dealers off for their cash and their weight."

That's what we call drugs," he explained to Justice Andrew Goodman, who is hearing the trial without a jury.

Hall thinks one of his targets is responsible for having his former home on Martha Street shot up in retaliation. He was there with his wife, Carol Anne Eaton, and their baby when it happened.

The Crown's theory is that Hall thought Billy set him up with bad information about the target and Hall blamed him for the shooting.

On the stand, Hall said Billy had nothing to do with any of it.

He's nobody I ever had a relationship with," he said.

I never spoke a word to him. Our circles didn't cross. They only thing I knew about him was that he was an addict. He smoked crack."

Billy's mother, Donna Dixon, shook her head as Hall spoke.

Hall said he learned Billy had disappeared from missing person" posters at the grocery store - posters Donna handed out by the hundreds.

I did not kill Billy Mason," Hall told the court.

So what was the horrible odour Eaton could smell when she woke one night at the farm in February 2006?

In a sworn statement to police she said she believed it was Billy's body burning. And that later, following Hall's instructions, she cleaned up fire debris from a cement pad behind the house.

Hall denied ever telling Eaton to do a cleanup.

Lusted testified earlier that was the same spot where Billy was cremated while he and Hall drank beer.

Hall said he made a fire on that concrete pad only once with Lusted. It was to torch the inside of a stolen truck.

I would always burn the interiors out of trucks, because they were completely useless," he explained. The interior of a stolen truck can't be sold."

Hall wasn't asked anything that would explain why Eaton would think she smelled Billy's burning body. Or why, if Hall had never even met Billy, Lusted would say he was with Hall when he killed and incinerated Billy.

The trial resumes July 21 with the Crown cross-examining Hall.

Susan Clairmont is a Hamilton-based crime, court and social justice columnist at The Spectator. Reach her via email: sclairmont@thespec.com