‘Didn’t mean to kill her’

Prosecution rejects stabber's guilty plea

By DEAN PRITCHARD, Winnipeg Sun
Last Updated: 12th January 2010, 7:20am

Daniel Thomas Johnson admits stabbing 19-year-old Jaylene Crane 51 times but says he didn’t mean to kill her. (???)

Johnson, 21, was arrested in September 2006, one week after Crane’s bloody, lifeless body was found in the rear of an Ellice Avenue apartment block.

On the first day of his first-degree murder trial, Johnson pleaded guilty to manslaughter. Prosecutors rejected the plea.

Too intoxicated

In her opening address to jurors, Crown attorney Christina Kopynsky alleged Johnson killed Crane in the course of sexually assaulting her, making him guilty of first-degree murder.

Kopynsky said Johnson’s lawyers will likely argue he was too intoxicated by drugs to form the intent to kill.

“I expect the only issue you will need to decide is his state of mind,” Kopynsky said.

“Intoxication is no excuse for committing an offence if he had the state of mind to commit the offence. An intoxicated mind is still a state of mind. We will be arguing his defence has no merit.”

Kopynsky told jurors several witnesses will testify Johnson confessed to killing Crane over an alleged $500 drug debt.

The Crown attorney said Johnson told one friend if arrested “he would plead temporary insanity because he was on two or three drugs at the time.”

Jurors heard police questioned Johnson days before his arrest about red stains on his running shoes. Johnson, who was then working at Tim Hortons, told police the marks were jelly stains and he was released without charge.

Police later confirmed it was Crane’s blood on Johnson’s shoes.

‘Back off’

Rodel Bautista testified he was getting ready to go to work shortly after 6 a.m. when he and his girlfriend heard somebody crying outside his apartment window. Bautista said he walked outside to the rear of the building and saw a man with his pants down leaning over a woman’s body.

“I asked the guy what happened and he said ‘Back off, back off,’ ” Bautista told jurors.

When the man ran off, Bautista followed him across the street, where he ran into a Simcoe Street yard and disappeared.

The trial is scheduled for seven weeks.

From: http://www.winnipegsun.com/news/winnipeg/2010/01/11/12427096.html