Susan Clairmont: Pair was ‘mean mugging’ murder victim and friends the night Michael Parmer was killed

The man who had been the murder victim's friend since middle school turns the mug shots over one by one.

Some he pauses with. A few he dismisses quickly.

Then he gets to photo #8.

He stops. Stares at it as it lays on the table in the sparse interview room at Hamilton's Central police station.

He bows his head. Looks at the photo again, repeating these motions several times.

Across the table, Hamilton police Sgt. Brian Ritchie waits silently. He doesn't really know what this is all about. He was just walking through the station - back then in October 2005 he usually worked at the courthouse - and was stopped by a couple of officers who asked him to conduct a photo lineup.

Just like that, Ritchie was pulled into a homicide investigation.

Through video and testimony from childhood friend Bryan Pettigrew and Ritchie, now retired, the story of that photo lineup unfolded over Zoom Tuesday at the first degree murder trial of Jermaine Dunkley.

Dunkley is accused of killing Michael Parmer that night. The Crown says Michael flirted with Dunkley's girlfriend.

Dunkley is appearing at his judge-alone trial from prison, where he is serving a life sentence for another, unrelated, murder.

On Sept. 9, 2005, Pettigrew saw his friend Michael dying of a gunshot wound to his eye in a crowded parking lot outside a bar on Ottawa Street North. They were among five guys from Niagara Falls, N.Y. who had crossed the border looking for fun.

They listened to music, danced. Some drank. Some chatted up women. All the while, a couple of men they didn't know kept their eye on the group.

Another of Michael's friends told court the pair was just staring. Real ugly."

It was very hostile," Pettigrew testifies.

Mean mugging," he calls it.

For a moment or two, the group lost track of Michael. It was around 3 a.m. and he was, they figured, exchanging phone numbers with a woman.

Then they heard a pop."

The friends didn't see Michael, a 22-year-old casino worker, get shot. They just heard it, then saw him bleeding.

Mike was a beautiful soul," Pettigrew testifies.

Pettigrew says he did a photo lineup at the police station that day. He didn't recognize any faces he was shown.

Pettigrew, now 38, tries to raise a question during his testimony, but is prohibited by Justice Joseph Henderson. Witnesses are there to answer questions, not ask them.

But later, Dunkley's lawyer raises the question for him.

What happened to the police video tape of Pettigrew doing that first photo lineup? Right after the murder? The lineup where he didn't recognize anyone?

Pettigrew repeats what he says the Crown attorneys told him when they were prepping him for the trial.

Things get lost."

On Oct. 21, 2005, Pettigrew returned to Hamilton to do another photo lineup.

This is the video played for the court.

Twelve photos. All of young Black men.

Pettigrew returns to #8 again and again.

He had given Ritchie a description of the staring men.

One was black, five-feet-eleven to six-feet tall, 180 lbs. with skinny cheeks," no facial hair, no older than 25 wearing a tan Yankees cap and black hoodie.

This looks similar to him," Pettigrew says of #8. He pushes the photo to the upper left corner of the table and returns to the lineup.

That looks like him," he says, as he comes back to #8 again.

Finally: That's definitely him."

The man in the photo? Jermaine Dunkley.

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