Jury deliberations underway in trial of man accused of killing innocent teen during B.C. gang shooting

The fate of the man accused of fatally shooting a rival gang member and an innocent teen passerby in 2018 now lies in the hands of a B.C. Supreme Court jury.

Twenty-eight-year-old Kane Carter is charged with the second-degree murders of 15-year-old Alfred Wong, and 23-year-old Kevin Whiteside during an incident near Broadway and Ontario Street in Vancouver on Jan. 13, 2018.

Supreme Court Justice Catherin Wedge spent several hours Friday walking the group through several legal principles and summarizing the evidence as she interpreted it, but reminded them that it is now on them to decide what they believe as fact.

“At the end of the day, it’s for you and you alone to decide what the facts of this case are,” said Wedge.

She emphasized that Carter started the trial presumed an innocent man, and it must remain that way unless they come to the unanimous decision that the Crown has proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed the offences he’s charged with committing.

Carter admits he flew from Ontario to B.C. in November of 2017 before flying back to Ontario one week after the shooting.

He also acknowledges he was the man who associates of his in a drug dealing operation only knew by the alias "Elijah."

The Crown's Theory

Crown prosecutors believe on the evening of Jan. 13, 2018, Carter was the lone occupant of a burgundy Pontiac Montana van parked south of the intersection of Broadway and Ontario Street with the intent to protect his associate Matthew Navas-Rivas, who was at Indochine restaurant.

Prosecutors say Carter was working in a "middle management" role for the drug operation headed by Navas-Rivas.

A former customer turned worker for the operation, Jackson Riley, testified that a van of the same make and model was frequently used by him and others to deliver drugs.

The defence has acknowledged that the drug dealing van and the van seen at the crime scene are, indeed, the same vehicle.

Riley testified that, on the night of shootings, he was out driving the van when Carter called him at around 7:45 p.m., urgently telling him to bring the vehicle back to the Seymour Street condo building where the drug operation was based.

Riley said Carter departed in the van some time just after 8 p.m.

Video shows the van parking on Ontario Street about a block south of Broadway at roughly 8:36 p.m.

The Crown says as Navas-Rivas and his girlfriend left the restaurant, Whiteside opened fire at around 9:16 p.m., shooting several rounds at them. Prosecutors believe that’s when Carter, from the van, fired at Whiteside, killing both him and Wong, who was riding in the back seat of his parents' car as they drove along Broadway.

The surveillance video shows the van drive off seconds after the shots were fired.

Cameras captured the vehicle at at least one other location in Vancouver shortly after.

An expert witness testified that a cellphone number that Carter admits was his pinged off a cell tower close to Highway 1 in Burnaby.

Then, just before 10 p.m., the Crown says a fob that Carter was the primary user of opened the exterior door to the underground parking lot of the Surrey condo building in which he was renting a unit.

Prosecutors showed video of the van eventually parking, before a man who they say is Carter can be seen heading towards the elevator.

A police investigator testified that when they found the van in the parking lot roughly four weeks later, they discovered three bullet casings and gun residue inside.

Carter admitted that his DNA was found on several parts of the van, as well as a tissue with his blood on it, but defence lawyer Richard Fowler pointed out that the van had been used for weeks prior by the drug dealing operation, suggesting the DNA could have come from those instances, rather than the night of the shooting.

Post-offence conduct

The Crown reminded the jury that they were presented with evidence that Carter changed his phone number the day after the shooting, and that he admits he flew to Ontario a week later.

“We say this is yet another example of Mr. Carter actively taking steps to distance himself from the shootings,” said Crown prosecutor Dan Blumenkrans.

Recordings of phone calls Carter made from various prisons were also played for a second time for jurors, including one from the Central East Correctional Centre in Ontario in June of 2019 while he was incarcerated for a separate offence.

The Crown says the call was made the day after Vancouver police officers travelled to the prison to interview Carter.

During one portion of the call, Carter is heard saying, “They don’t have no eyewitnesses, nobody to point me out at the scene, they don’t have no video of me slapping nothing.”

An expert witness in street language testified that "slapping" meant shooting.

“He’s not saying I didn’t do it or I wasn’t there,” said Blumenkrans. “He’s essentially saying, 'The police don’t have proof that I did it.'”

Defence

During his closing argument Thursday, Fowler brought up how there was no evidence that Navas-Rivas knew there was a target on his back, and that phone records showed that there were no texts or calls made between him and Carter in the hours leading up to the shootings.

“If this motive for Mr. Carter to be there is to protect Mr. Navas-Rivas, Mr. Navas-Rivas must have known for some need to be protected,” said Fowler. “There’s no evidence of that at all."

As for the timeline between when Riley said Carter picked up the van on the night of the killings and when the shooting occurred, Fowler said there would have been plenty of time for Carter to drop the van off to someone else.

“There are multiple gaps in time,” he said.

Fowler also mentioned that the three bullet casings later found in the van were linked to a shooting in September of 2017 in Vancouver, while Carter was living in Ontario.

“There’s actually no evidence before you that Mr. Carter had access to the type of gun likely used in these killings,” he said.

Fowler also said he doesn’t believe there was sufficient proof that the shots even came from the van.

'Transferred intent'

Wedge told the jury that even though the Crown does not believe Carter intended to harm or kill Wong, within the criminal code there is the “transferred intent rule,” which holds that when one’s intention to harm one person inadvertently causes another to person to be hurt, the person who caused the harm will still be held responsible.

Wedge told them that if they find that Carter did commit the second-degree murder of Whiteside, they must also convict him for the second-degree murder of Wong.

Wedge also gave the group the option to convict Carter of the lesser offence of manslaughter if they felt the Crown had proven all elements except for the intent to kill.