Was pause in cellphone use a time to kill for Jermaine Dunkley?
Jermaine Dunkley was active on his cellphone past midnight on Thursday Sept. 8, 2005 - and well into the next morning.
He made calls or texts Friday, Sept. 9, between 1:30 and 2 a.m., and at 2:32 a.m., 2:58 a.m., and 2:59 a.m.
He was on his phone periodically until at least 9 a.m.
He did not use the phone from 3 to 3:17 a.m.
Crown prosecutors are suggesting that window was a time to kill for Dunkley, who is on trial for first-degree murder.
A slide presented by a crime analyst showed a dot representing the location of Dunkley's phone, in east Hamilton that morning, and also an arrow at Ottawa Street North near Cannon Street East, with the caption in red: 3:09: Shooting near CDs Bar."
Michael Parmer was shot in the eye in a nearby parking lot at 3:09 a.m., and later died in hospital.
The Hamilton police analyst, Jovan Krasulja, broke down cellphone data showing that Dunkley chatted primarily with a man nicknamed Grouch," who came into the city from Toronto that night. That included four calls or texts between the men after the shooting, between 4:33 and 8:54 a.m.
Records show that Dunkley had called for a taxi around at 12:53 a.m. from Philthy McNasty's sports bar on Upper James Street; cell tower data places him in the east end of the lower city just after 1 a.m.
In other testimony, a Hamilton woman said that in 2005, when she was 16, two women she knew bleached up" her apartment - they poured bleach, and scattered food and wine, in her home. She said they targeted her because one of the women accused her of sleeping with Dunkley's brother.
Defence lawyer Nathan Gorham suggested that her evidence did not contribute to any narrative purpose" in the trial.
Gorham, who has already sparred with the Crown over the presentation of the case, raised the spectre of the trial ending prematurely. He says he will submit an application to Justice Joseph Henderson to stay the proceedings. If the judge grants his request, the trial will be over.
The lawyer is critical of the role played by the Crown's star witness, a woman whose identity is protected by a publication ban. Allowing her evidence, he said, will bring the administration of justice into disrepute."
Jon Wells is a Hamilton-based reporter and feature writer for The Spectator. Reach him via email: jwells@thespec.com