Tyquan Brown was the ‘life of the party.’ His death was random, his killer chose him for no reason
Tyquan Brown had a laugh that was contagious.
He was fun, the life of the party." The kind of guy who brought friends together and brought out the best in people. A young man who didn't miss Sunday dinners with his family and was a best friend to one of his young teenage nephews, says his sister LaToya Salmon.
The 23-year-old loved basketball. He was a LeBron James fan, but back on May 30, 2019 he was swept up in the excitement of the Raptors' championship run. On that night, he met with a small group of friends at 180 Sherman Ave. N. and watched the team's first NBA finals win.
They were celebrating outside, dancing and carefree, when a man ran up, without warning, and stabbed Brown in the chest with a 12-inch bayonet. The wound was 4.5 inches deep and pierced three major arteries.
Last month, his killer, Dylon Duarte, was convicted by a jury of second-degree murder.
Salmon was in the courtroom that day and every other day of the trial. She says she wanted to show everyone in the courtroom Brown had a family who loves and misses him. She also wanted everyone to see her sit there calmly and politely - just like her brother always acted.
It was an unusual trial, because almost none of the evidence had anything to do with Brown. That's because Duarte's actions were all about another person, his ex-girlfriend Hope Vankoughnett.
Salmon says the prosecution warned the family how the case would be framed at trial, and that it was not meant to diminish their loss or overlook Brown.
Everything Duarte did that night was about tracking down and punishing Vankoughnett for leaving him. It was essentially a domestic violence case until Duarte targeted Brown. Witnesses testified that Duarte said afterwards that he stabbed the tallest guy there.
Literally, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Salmon says. It is hard for his friends and family to comprehend that he is gone when he was just trying to have some fun with friends.
Brown didn't even really know Vankoughnett. He didn't know Duarte at all.
During the trial, the Crown went through more than 100 text messages, many to Vankoughnett in which Duarte oscillated from being loving and supportive to threatening suicide if she didn't come back to him. One chilling message was repeated throughout the trial: Like I'm going to hurt people you don't know like just some random person I want my family back."
That was sent at 4:01 p.m. May 30 and by 12:20 a.m. on May 31, Brown became that random victim.
Duarte was charged with first-degree murder, but convicted of second-degree, which also comes with a life sentence. Now all that is to be decided is how many years before he's eligible for parole.
Duarte testified in his own defence at trial, saying that he didn't stab Brown and that he was only looking for Vankoughnett out of concern because she was drinking. He claimed he was threatened with a knife and that Brown had an extendable baton. But by their verdict it's clear the jury didn't believe him. His story was contradicted by nearly every witnesses and by the physical evidence at the scene.
Of all the evidence Salmon encountered during the trial, it was a video of Brown collapsing in an alley, where he ran after the stabbing, that was hardest to bear.
It was chaos when Duarte ran up yelling and swinging his bayonet. The group didn't realize Brown was hurt. Brown ran into the alley and collapsed. The video shows 15 minutes tick by before a police officer finally finds him.
What I hate the most is that he was alone," she says.
Watching that video was the longest 15 minutes of my life."
Salmon wonders what would have happened if someone had found him sooner. At the very least, someone could have held his hand as he took his last breaths. She doesn't blame anyone for what happened, except Duarte.
She tells her two children that God took their uncle for a bigger reason.
Brown was born in Kingston, Ont. and spent his childhood there before his family moved to Hamilton. He has two brothers and three sisters. Brown attended Sir John A. Macdonald Secondary School and then enrolled in a renovation program at Mohawk College. He was working in construction.
He was talented at drawing and Salmon says she was encouraging him to go back to school to study architecture.
Family called him Tiki or TK. He was a Mama's boy," Salmon says.
Brown used to take Salmon's son out all the time - go-karting or on trips to Niagara Falls. When her kids were little and he was still a teen, Brown used to return to Kingston, where she was still living at the time, and babysit them in the summer.
He was definitely all about family," she says. The last time they spoke was the day before he was killed, when he wanted to know details about his nephew's Grade 8 graduation so he could be there. He never made it.
It was around 6:15 a.m. on May 31 when Brown's former girlfriend called Salmon and told her she needed to get to the hospital. Then her phone rang again and it was their mom crying: they took him," she repeated over and over.
Brown's dad died when he was a kid, as did Duarte's. That parallel struck Salmon. The death of his father profoundly affected Brown, but he had a strong, loving family around him, she says.
Not long before his murder, Brown started talking about his dad often, Salmon says. He would always say he wanted to make his dad proud.
Nicole O'Reilly is a Hamilton-based reporter covering crime and justice for The Spectator. Reach her via email: noreilly@thespec.com