When the gunman burst into the kitchen of HHMS Nightclub, Leisa Maillard looked straight into his eyes. "You don't have to do this, you know. If you guys want to fight, just fight," the 39-year-old mother of two pleaded. "He has a wife and kids." But the killer pointed his pistol at her: "Shut your blood clot before I kill you," he growled, using a Jamaican insult.
News Source: Toronto Star
Seconds later, the gunman and an accomplice shot eight .38 calibre and 9 mm slugs into Colin Moore. His brother Roger Moore escaped with a graze to his head.
The year Moore was killed, 2002, nearly half the city's 60 homicides were caused by firearms. Then, as now, the majority involved some aspect of gangs, guns and drug activity.
But the slaying of Martin Colin Moore was different in several key respects, according to the crown.
It was not a dispute between rival gangs.
It was not a drug deal gone bad.
It was sparked, Crown Attorney Robin Flumerfelt told the jury, by a dispute over a $10 cover charge. Moreover, there were lots of witnesses willing to step forward - in contrast to many nightclub shootings where fear lets killers get away with murder, the prosecutor said in his final summation this week.
And there was evidence rarely heard in a Toronto courtroom - two dramatic 911 calls that provided the jury with a haunting, first-hand account of Moore's execution in the club's small windowless kitchen.
Yesterday, after Ontario Justice David McCombs finished his charge, the jury left to begin deliberations in the trial of Gary Eunick, 29, and Leighton Hay, 21, who have pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder in Moore's death and not guilty of attempting to murder his brother Roger.
Police who investigate homicides say they are dealing with a new breed of killer today.
They're young, armed and can be set off over something as inconsequential as a perceived "dis" or being searched before entering a club. Disputes once settled with fists are now finalized with guns, with lethal consequences.
The people who ran First Fridays, including Colin Moore, had posted security personnel at the door to frisk patrons for weapons or alcohol.
On the first Friday of every month, for four years, the 51-year-old father of two had been running the charity dance and social for middle-aged Guyanese Canadians. A popular man who made friends easily and inspired strong loyalties, he attended the community's functions and supported its causes.
On Friday, July 5, 2002 - a beautiful summer evening - Colin was in a particularly good mood as he checked the washrooms and chatted with security as patrons started arriving.
His wife Jennifer Moore sold tickets from a window in a small foyer of the HHMS club, which stretched across the back of the lower level of a small, red brick plaza on Victoria Park Ave. at Eglinton Ave. E.
First Fridays were typically mellow, with a DJ playing West Indian oldies, though lately a harder, younger crowd had started showing up.Trouble on this night started late.
According to Flumerfelt, Gary Eunick, then a 27-year-old hairstylist, and his girlfriend Lisa Hay arrived at the door. With them, the crown said, were their siblings Leighton Hay, then 19, and Norval Eunick, plus another unidentified male. The group didn't want to pay the $10 cover charge, he said. The Eunicks were distantly related to part-owner Hugh Robinson and Gary was used to getting in free.
"They wouldn't take no for an answer," Flumerfelt testified.
Eunick disputes this. He insisted on the stand that he and his girlfriend were alone and he paid for them both without complaint.
What no one questions is that a fight broke out. Piecing together exactly what happened is more difficult, due to varying witness recollections. Everyone agrees it was chaotic and messy.
In the thick of it, according to the prosecution, were the Moore brothers, the Eunicks and Leighton Hay, though his lawyer, Jeff House, said Hay was at home asleep.
No one positively identified his client as being at the scene, he says. In his final summation, House said evidence points instead to the Eunick brothers.
During his final summation, Flumerfelt re-played a 911 exchange between Robinson and a communications operator that gave a chilling look at how a confrontation can quickly escalate.
"I've got a fight inside the club at HHMS Nightclub," Robinson, the background filled with shouting and noise, says.
Moments later, panic rising in his voice, he describes two men and a black revolver.
Flumerfelt told the jurors that the shooters left the club after the initial altercation. "When they returned they donned their gloves, decided they were ready," he said.
Club patron June Daniels testified she heard the sound of plate glass crashing and saw a tall gunman pulling a gun from his waistband. Behind him was a man wearing orange, Daniels told the court.
Keres Clarke Glasgow, another patron, described hearing from the gunmen: "We're going to done him" and "We're going to shoot him."
The gunmen burst through the kitchen door, where they found Colin and Roger Moore at the sink, Flumerfelt said. Others were there, including Jennifer.
"They cornered the two defenceless, unarmed brothers," the prosecutor said.
"They fired upon them in a manner that can only be described as an execution."
The gunshots are captured on the 911 recording, along with four short screams. It was 1:16:47, less than five minutes from when Robinson first reported trouble. "Oh my God," gasps the operator.
The jury heard little about the two co-accused.
Gary Eunick testified, Leighton Hay did not. They were arrested at Hay's home on Chigwel Court in Mississauga the next afternoon. Police had the residence surrounded within an hour of the shooting after tracing the licence plate of Lisa Hay's green Honda Civic to her mother's address.
Flumerfelt referred to the home as the second crime scene because of evidence collected there. Bloody clothing with gunshot residue and bullets inside a sock buried in a clothing hamper were among evidence presented in court, evidence for which the defence offered various explanations.
Eunick testified he dropped out of high school after Grade 11. He worked part-time at a hair salon across the road from his father's townhouse on Kingston Road. The salon's owner told THE STAR Eunick comes from a good family. "Solid, even after he stopped working here, he was still coming in to help out, a good kid."
But Eunick had a criminal past, something which the jury was not told.
In November, 2000, he was convicted of firearms offences and possessing cocaine. He was sentenced to 14 months and two weeks imprisonment plus three years probation, documents show. The jury was told that he was in breach of recognizance of bail for breaking a curfew.
Hay also had a record, again not disclosed to the jury. He was convicted of gun possession, his lawyer confirmed, though he suggested he'd been a dupe.
What also stands the Moore case apart is that witnesses were willing to testify, which is rare in gun-related homicides and cited by police as the main reason fewer are being solved.
"He (Colin) was so well liked these people en masse came forward," says homicide detective Bob Wilkinson, who worked on the case with Tony Smith, formerly with the homicide squad.
But even when witnesses co-operate, consensus can be elusive. Yesterday the judge warned jurors of thefrailties of eyewitness testimony.
Nor can witnesses explain such a tragedy.
"You get a solid citizen just trying to organize things, have a bit of fun, do a bit for charity and (he gets killed) for the most bizarre reasons," Wilkinson said in an interview.
"I don't know if you can ever justify (killing someone but) it's not even a dispute over something near and dear, a passion or religious thing. It's you're-dissing-me type of deal. I just don't understand it."
Full Story: 911 recordings
