Another delay in teen’s murder case

NORTHUMBERLAND - A 15-year-old Warkworth teen charged with the second degree murder of Michelle Barnoski remains in custody as his lawyer and the Crown Attorney butt heads over the time it is taking to share evidence and get a trial date for the case.

“The complexity of a case determines the amount of time required,” said Crown Attorney Brad Kelneck. “This is not a run of the mill case that we get in an Ontario Court of Justice.’

The Warkworth teen, who was 14 at the time of his arrest and cannot be named under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, appeared in a Port Hope courtroom on Friday, Sept. 5, without his legal counsel. The teen’s defense lawyer Howard Goldkind faxed the Crown’s office on Sept. 3 — a fax which Mr. Kelneck shared with the court. In the fax, Mr. Goldkind said he would not be coming to the Port Hope court because there was no hope of setting a trial date while the defense is still waiting for full disclosure of the evidence against the teen.

The defense lawyer has said before that the Crown has been slow to give him the full disclosure. Mr. Goldkind said the information was coming to him in parts and he is told there is much more information still to come.

Mr. Kelneck said the defense has already been given “90 per cent” of the evidence. He said police are still investigating the case and a DVD of all witness statements should be available soon. Mr. Kelneck said he couldn’t say exactly when the last of the evidence would be shared with the defense.

“The bulk of the disclosure will be going out soon and a number of people are working overtime to make that happen,” said Mr. Kelneck. “This is not a case of anyone dragging their feet.”

Mr. Kelneck said the investigation into murder charges are complicated, involving many witnesses, photographs, recordings, diagrams and the autopsy results. He told the Northumberland News the last homicide case he worked on was 35,000 pages of court documents.

“If anyone has an expectation that can be done in 24 hours, that’s unreasonable,” said Mr. Kelneck.   

Also complicating the matter is the case against Marc Vickers, who was originally charged with accessory after the fact in the Barnoski murder. His charges were upgraded to second-degree murder on Tuesday. The 35-year-old Mr. Vickers resided in the same house as the victim, police said.

The two were arrested and charged by the OPP on June 12 after Ms. Barnoski went missing on May 27. The victim’s body was discovered buried in the backyard of her Warkworth home on June 13.

Mr. Goldkind, in his fax, asked for a trial date to be set for the youth in mid-October. Justice Lorne Chester asked the teen if he had been contacted by his lawyer and the boy said he had been, earlier that week. The judge asked if the youth had been told the hearing would be pushed back until October and if he was satisfied with that. The teen answered yes.  

Justice Chester said the defense lawyer should contact the trial coordinator to set a court date but agreed to schedule the teen back in a Port Hope courtroom on Friday, Oct. 17 to set a pre-trial date.