Ontario’s legal system has grown so expensive and bogged down by red tape that it’s now inaccessible to many of the people it’s meant to serve, the province’s new top judge warned on his first full day on the job. George Strathy urged every level of court to consider how their practices can be simplified, streamlined and made more user-friendly.Nikolay Mamluke/Getty Images/iStockphoto
A Winnipeg man has been found guilty of dismembering his roommate and scattering the body parts across the city.
Emery McLeod, who is 40, had pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder of Darin Monias in February 2012.
Jurors began deliberations Wednesday afternoon and they returned several hours later ruling McLeod guilty of manslaughter.
McLeod will be sentenced later this year.
He took the witness stand in his own defence and claimed 42-year-old Monias likely died as a result of an ultimate fighting-style brawl between them during a weekend of drinking and drug use that left him in a "haze."
McLeod said he panicked after discovering Monias was dead and felt the only thing to do was to try and cover up what happened.
"I was trying to keep my ass out of jail," McLeod testified.
His lawyer, John McAmmond, told jurors in his final argument they should find his client guilty of manslaughter at worst.
"They were in a consensual wrestling match. They'd done this before in similar fashion without a disastrous result," he said. The dismemberment was simply an attempt "to get himself out of a jam," he said.
McAmmond added there's plenty of evidence of severe intoxication which would have left McLeod unable to form the necessary intent to commit murder.
But Crown attorney Brian Bell urged jurors to dismiss all of McLeod's testimony, which he called self-serving. He noted McLeod told police numerous lies and said that pattern continued when he was on the witness stand.
McLeod initially denied any involvement after police confronted him upon discovering two severed hands belonging to Monias in a downtown Dumpster. Other body parts were found by police and citizens in the next couple of months, although the victim's head was never located.