Closing arguments have been heard in the second-degree murder trial of a man accused of killing a 19-year-old after a house party outside Halifax nearly four years ago.
The Crown calls Casey Downey’s murder a “senseless act of violence” while the defence says there is no evidence Demarco Smith intended to kill Downey.
Downey was found stabbed to death inside a North Preston home in February 2010.
“It’s been Hell on earth, really,” says Downey’s mother Pamela. “Every day I cry. Every day, you know, because I’ve lost my son.”
Crown prosecutor Roland Levesque alleges the stabbing was prompted by an argument over carrying speakers out of the house after a party.
“That makes me think that people are really stupid, to just go around killing people for nothing,” says Pamela Downey. “I mean, an argument. Does that give me the right to kill you because you’re arguing with me?” No, it doesn’t.”
Smith, 28, is on trial for second-degree murder in the case. Defence lawyer Pat Atherton told the court there is no evidence to suggest Smith provoked Downey or that he intended to kill him.
He alleges Downey was the aggressor and that he “impaled himself as he came at Demarco Smith.”
The Crown says much of the defence is unbelievable.
“If you want to arrive at that conclusion, you have to accept the accused’s version, but it’s not corroborated by any other person that was there at the time,” says Levesque.
The Crown says Downey was intoxicated and argumentative the night of his death but that he didn’t deserve to die.
In his closing arguments, Levesque told the court that Smith was angry at Downey for bugging him about helping to clean up and then pulled a knife on Downey and stabbed him before fleeing the scene.
No one who took the stand testified to witnessing the stabbing, however.
The judge is expected to deliver a sentence in the case on Jan. 8.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Jacqueline Foster
